Nobody's Business

John McCain and a Series of Tubes

Newsweek's Anna Quindlen, usually a rather wimpy go-along-to-get-along columnist, gets it right (and minces no words) on McCain's dysfunctional relationship with the Internet:

When the Republican candidate described himself earlier this year as a computer illiterate who had never gone online, it just made him look odd. And old. Of course, that's not fair. Both my father and my mother-in-law are somewhat older than McCain (although indubitably young at heart), and both of them have been using e-mail for years. While only one in three Americans over the age of 65 goes online, surveys of McCain's peer group—older, white, well educated—find the number rises to three out of four. Almost half of Americans say they've used the Internet, e-mail or text messaging to follow this presidential election. It's as though the senator had been invited to a massive rally of tens of millions of voters, and was reluctant to attend because getting there might be a bit of a hassle.

But McCain's explanation, that he depended on aides and his wife to show him what's in cyberspace, didn't only make him seem behind the curve. It made him seem Out of It. And that's important, because Out of It is what Americans cannot afford in a president at this moment. OOI describes too many of our leaders, in business and industry as well as politics. It means that manufacturing executives don't get ahead of the curve of consumer desires, that government-agency heads are often blind to how their policies really work for ordinary people, and that political figures can be insensible to undercurrents because they are always sailing over the mainstream.

The central question:

The terrorists have laptops in their hideouts. Can America afford to have a leader who is just learning how to use one?

Minneapolis: Medals for Fuckups

Let's say that at the Indy 500, a professional driver turns his car 180 degrees and, throwing all prudence to the wind, deliberately completes his laps by driving in the wrong direction, endangering his own life and the lives of all others on the track. Will he get a medal or a ban from professional racing?

Now we move from the real world to a bizarre alternate reality called copworld. Say that a team of SWAT officers raids the wrong house without knocking, and fires multiple times at the wholly innocent homeowner while he defends his family, as he has every reason to believe that the nighttime marauders are armed robbers. Does the SWAT team leader get fired or feted? Do the cowboys under his command get disciplined, or do they get medals pinned to their chests?

No doubt, you can guess the answer.

NYPD Cop Bodyslams Bicyclist — Caught on Tape

From Information Week:

The cyclist, Christopher Long, of Hoboken, N.J., was handcuffed, arrested, and charged with attempted assault, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct for allegedly obstructing traffic.

After the arrest, the video surfaced, taken by a Times Square tourist. See who's assaulting whom.

UPDATE: The video has now garnered over 1.4 million hits on YouTube. I'm going to guess that doesn't make NYPD officer Patrick Pogan, whose fab police work was captured for the world to see, particularly happy.

How a Chicagoland Dynasty Still Fucks Taxpayers

When you're ruining running your county, and journalists and residents are not always kind to you (say, because you imposed an outsized sales tax of 10.25% on merchants and buyers), what should you do?

Throw more public money away, of course. At least that's what Cook County (IL) board president Todd Stroger did when he grew tired of "getting pummeled" by the local press. Last November, the Stroger administration paid $24,999 to a publisher for the launch of a positive magazine about Cook County. A round $25,000 would have required the official nod from the full Cook County board. By subtracting a buck, the initiative could fly more or less under the radar until the magazine was a fait accompli.

And now — huzzah! — the 32-page publication is here. Guess who's the cover boy? Why, Todd Stroger! The cover interview starts with the ever-hard-hitting question "How are you feeling these days?"

The Sun-Times reports that

There's also a short obituary for Stroger's late father and predecessor as county board president, John H. Stroger Jr., who died in January. It misspells his name.

But it gets better (or worse?): Apparently, now the Stroger administration has decided to bin the magazine altogether.

"I was asked to review it and decided not to distribute it — not because of content, but errors and omissions in the article" about John Stroger, [press aide] Mullins said. "Judging on grammatical stuff — something misspelled or that's not a complete sentence — falls back on the president. And this is a Cook County magazine. I have to find a way to get rid of them. I'm not distributing them."

It's safe to say that the moribund publication wouldn't have run articles like this one from the Sun Times:

[Stroger] runs a government that spits in the eye of the taxpayers who support it. It is an 8th Ward fiefdom in which friends, relatives and precinct workers get high-paying, often six-figure jobs whether they have credentials to do the work or not.

Need evidence of the cronyism? Below is a partial list of Michael Brown-esque jobs awarded to Stroger friends and supporters. But first consider this: Cook County being the heart of the Daley empire, Todd Stroger inherited his county-official job from his dad, John Stroger. Every political step forward, he owes, by most reliable accounts, not to his leadership talents, but to naked patronage.

And he proudly continues that tradition. Behold:

• Bruce Washington (primary campaign manager for Todd's dad) — director of capital planning policy — $133,424.
• Donna Dunnings (John Stroger's niece, Todd's cousin) — remains budget director at a salary of $142,820.
• Carmen Triche Colvin (wife of Todd's best friend, state Rep. Marlo Colvin) — promoted from the Forest Preserve to County Purchasing Agent. Former salary, a tidy $95,000. New salary, a tidier $126,670.
• Monique Martin (Todd's sister-in-law) — becomes his personal secretary at $64,983.
• Kim Gilmore (close pal of Todd's) — promoted in human resources from a mere $112,670 to $141,725.
• Dwight Welch (mayor of Country Club Hills who recently got a pay raise as mayor) — also works for Stroger cousin Donna Dunnings in the Budget Office. Nice salary there too: $104,030.
• Marlo Kemp (former assistant to John Stroger) — now deputy CFO jumping from $90,228 to $127,423.

With all that money being thrown around while local politicians continue telling voters to bend over and lube up, blowing $25K — excuse me, $24,999 — on a poorly executed feelgood magazine about the wondrous accomplishments of the Stroger administration — well, that's peanuts. I'd rather see Cook County ditch the political parasites on its payroll than attempting to turn back the clock on the measly mag.

Then again, in an ideal world, Cook County voters would do both, by ballot or (preferably) by pitchfork.

[thanks, Erik!]

All South L.A.'s Problems Licked: Ban Fast Food!

No new fast-food restaurants ought be allowed in a 32-square-mile area comprising most of South Los Angeles. So decree-eth an L.A. City Council committee, with Councilwoman Jan Perry leading the charge. The ban could last for two years, unless the Council authorizes an extension (and why wouldn't they?).

The LAist blog muses about it beautifully [thanks to reader Meredith W. for the tip]:

Perry's reasons are two-fold: first, the near-monopolistic hold of fast food restaurants over the area's retail eateries. Small business owners and supermarkets have no incentive to invest in an area where Big Macs are prized above Mom's apple pie. Second, Perry cites concerns over "the health issues associated with fast food, such as diabetes and obesity."

As LAist has rightly pointed out in the past, it might be easier to buy a gun in South LA than to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. But as our previous editor also pointed out, why should South LA's citizens be protected from themselves? If fast food restaurants are flourishing in these areas, and providing important jobs to low-income communities, who are we to push our liberal-organic, HFCS-fearing agenda on an area of the city that seems perfectly happy to hug their hamburgers to their mountainous bosoms and call it a day? So what if they don't have a "choice" — they don't have the "education" to tell the difference anyway!

So let the free market economy call the shots on this one, and government intervention be damned. Fast food bans are just a bandaid on a shotgun wound. The stuff that shows up in our fuzzy-wuzzy fancy markets is just as likely to kill us as a stupid burger, anyway. It's a cheap, attention-grabbing ploy to make some city council people feel like they're making a difference, when we all know these problems are deeply rooted in decades of bad policy-making and corporate campaigns of misinformation.

And guess who fought to prevent L.A. citizens from buying affordable fruits and vegetables like those offered by WalMart? The very same Jan Perry [link via Radley].

Egads: One eBoost is Not Like the Other

I learned today that apparently, there's eBoost Media, and then there's eBoost Consulting. Both are in the search engine optimization (SEO) field, and both do business out of California. But according to eBoost Consulting's Nick Urbani, with whom I just spent 15 minutes on the phone, there is zero connection between the two firms.

In this video posted on YouTube, two young executives at eBoost Consulting set the record straight about the Internet shitstorm I just unleashed in the wake of the horrendous customer service I received from eBoost Media. I'm happy to do likewise: as far as I can tell, and absent current evidence to the contrary, eBoost Consulting is guilty of nothing more than being careless about defending its trademark.

Urbani publicly proposed to do a free SEO project for me if I would run this clarification, but I've declined his kind offer. My articles and posts should stand on their own, without raising questions in anyone's mind about whether they were influenced by my having been given something of value. I did tell Urbani that I would appreciate it if he were to instead extend his offer to the very first victim of eBoost Media who contacts him with a genuine tale of financial/SEO-related woe, and he has graciously agreed to do just that.

Lend Me Your Ears, or, Who You Callin' a Faggot?

Are all companies that sell search engine optimization services swindlers and crooks, as I've heard? Surely not, but my own experiences with an SEO firm called eBoost Media quickly turned surreal, so I'd like to share the saga here — and in return invite your wisdom.

Let me cut right to the heart (and the height) of the bizarre goings-on: on Friday evening, I received an anonymous, sneering, jeering voice-mail from an eBoost Media customer service rep. She called me a "faggot" and a "queer." I shit you not. This was her apparent retaliation for my demanding a refund due to the fact that the company had, for multiple weeks, not delivered one iota of what they said they would. I got tired of the excuses and wanted out, and they were giving me the runaround, so I laid it out simply enough by phone and e-mail: either you give me my money back or you'll be looking at a police complaint and a possible fraud investigation.

Here's the message I received in return. Actually, there are two. The first one (relatively polite, though the strained friendliness is pretty evident) is from an eBoost Media customer service manager called Denette. The second message, left just minutes later, is the fascinating one in which I'm addressed as, let us say, a flamboyant friend of Dorothy's. Is it the same woman on the recording, times two? Sounds like it to my (musically well-trained) ears.

In case you can't get the recording to play (I've embedded it above but it doesn't seem to work on all PC/Mac/browser configurations; you can also download the small WMA file by clicking here, or the MP3 by clicking here), this is the verbatim text:

"Hey Roger van Fucko, you are a faggot! So listen to this, queer!" [unintelligible background noise and talking, then the name 'Roger' again, then she hangs up]

When I called him yesterday, eBoost's acting CEO Michael Luvano agreed to listen to the recording. He then acknowledged that the second call had come from someone at eBoost Media, but curiously enough, he denied it was Denette. The mystery culprit, he said hours after hearing the messages, had already been "dealt with" — she'd been "severely reprimanded." When, puzzled, I suggested we ought to let other people listen to the messages on the Internet and solicit their opinions on whether or not it's the same voice, he got huffy and accused me of being out to badmouth his company.

Nonetheless, Luvano offered to have the CEO, Kevin Johnson (who he said was on vacation) write me a personal apology. He also said the company would finally refund the dough, which I appreciate.

Let's see if the money arrives. And Johnson's note, too.

Anyway, help me out here: Isn't the woman on the two voicemails one and the same? I'm curious what you think. (Remember, Luvano has already admitted it's someone who works for him at eBoost Media, and that that person has been disciplined, but that was all he would say on the matter.) Does anybody else suspect, as I do, that he's just blowing smoke by denying that the deranged individual who left message number two is the very same woman as the caller who left the first message?

Listen carefully and take the poll!

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P.S.: During the initial sales call, the eBoost Media sales rep made much of eBoost's purported "special relationship" with Google, and talked about what terrific partners the two companies are.

Turns out that's a lie, at least according to someone who ought to know — Kasia Chmielinski of Google Corporate Communications. I received this kind e-mail from Kasia today.

Hi Rogier,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.

As a matter of policy, Google does not provide assistance to, preference for or recommend any particular SEO company. You can read our thoughts about employing an SEO firm here, in our help center. A few paragraphs in particular I'd like to point out:

"Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google, or advertise a 'priority submit' to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."

"While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful."

In addition, I did a quick search on them [eBoost Media] and found they have been cited for their scams.

If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Thanks,

k.

So, is eBoost Media a swindle? A fraud? Affirmative, says Google, but perhaps others can shed additional light on the subject. Feel free to post about your experiences with eBoost Media — at least if your IP address does not match any of eBoost's corporate computers...

P.P.S.: Others are shedding additional light, courtesy of Boing Boing, the most popular blog in the world. Overall, the picture emerging is, um, no great credit to eBoost Media. Looky here. Pay special attention to moderator Teresa Nielsen Hayden's mini-investigation, comment #52.

Italians to Their Criminal Politicians: "Vaffanculo!"

Europeans, who tend to be obedient little sheep when it comes to the outrages of their governments, nonetheless show occasional signs of life. This profile of ultra-popular Italian comedian and activist Beppe Grillo, who lets lawsuits nor censorship efforts detract him from his mission to expose the outright corruption of Italy's ruling classes, is heartening.

Grillo's blog (in Italian and English) is apparently the eighth-most-read in the world. Here, courtesy of the New Yorker, is a clue about why so many Italians love him.

In 1981, Italian magistrates had discovered the existence of a Masonic lodge called P2 — the “P” was for “propaganda” — whose members included prominent politicians, judges, industrialists, and secret-service officers. Several were later implicated in financial frauds, Mafia-related murders, or right-wing terrorist bombings. The discovery of P2 was one of the greatest scandals of postwar Italy, and RAI executives warned Grillo not to speak about it on television. So he wrote about it instead. In 1983, he brought a blackboard and a piece of chalk onto the set and composed an elaborate “P2 theorem,” which demonstrated the existence of the lodge and the membership in it of Pietro Longo, a leading politician.

In 1986, Bettino Craxi, Italy’s Socialist Prime Minister, made a state visit to China, and on TV Grillo imagined an aide asking the Prime Minister, “If everyone’s a Socialist down here, who do they steal from?” Craxi protested to RAI, and Grillo was effectively banned from television until Craxi resigned as the leader of the Socialist Party, in 1993. (Craxi was indicted on corruption charges and accused of taking billions of lire in bribes. He escaped prosecution by fleeing to Tunisia, where he died in exile in 2000.)

Yes We Can (Ban You From Our Campaign Event)

Did the Obama campaign exclude a journalist for the New Yorker from a multi-day news event because of that cover? The Senator's staff cited "space constraints," and for all we know, that's all it was, seeing as 200 journalists applied for 40 slots on the plane in question. But you have to wonder if any of the invitations were by chance issued to the Podunk Herald and the Boringham Bee.

In any case, Rachel Sklar (though appearing to jump to conclusions) gets it right:

Retribution for unfavorable coverage is a chilling thing to contemplate — literally, as in, it carries with it the very real risk of chilling bold, outspoken coverage. Whatever one thinks of the New Yorker cover — that it was clear  satire that clearly lampooned ridiculous rumors, that it went way overboard, that it was a comedic misfire — a robust press can't operate under threat of reprisal for unwelcome items.

Obama himself doesn't seem to be that bothered by the cover, but maybe he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. He is, after all, no stranger to audacity.

Mokwa Mockery

If you look as hellish-scary stoned/drunk as this, and you have a history of driving under the influence, and a history of causing traffic accidents in fairly rapid succession, why wouldn't you find yourself in jail at some point? Especially when the cars you wreck were bought with, essentially, stolen taxpayer funds? Well, if you want to stay out of the pokey despite all that, it sure helps to be the daughter of St. Louis police chief Joe Mokwa.