Voodoo Hexes. Little Johnny Jokes. Common Sense. My Opinion.

In the tiny backwoods community of "Historic" Midway, Georgia the police have shut down a lemonade stand being operated by 3 girls who were attempting to raise money so that they could buy tickets to a popular waterpark. Here is the Fox New video interview wherein the girls describe their treatment:

Shame on you, you HEARTLESS BEASTS running Midway, for running the lemonade stand girls out of business! It is the short-sighted, money-grubbing bureaucrats, such as yourselves, that are KILLING the spirit of small business in America.

$50/day and $150/year to run a lemonade stand???? Are you effing kidding me????

The only thing historic I find with your town is its thinking and lack of leadership.

The scoundrels of Midway, GA in particular are:

• DR. CLEMONTINE WASHINGTON, Mayor
• KELLI MORNINGSTAR, Chief of Police
• MARK RICH, Police Officer
• DUVALLE PAGE, SR., Police Officer
• JOAQUIN CORTES III,Police Officer
• JOHN HARVEY, Municipal Court Judge
• LYNNETTE COOK-OSBORNE, City Clerk
• CURTES ROBERTS, SR., Mayor Pro Tem
• LEVERN CLANCY, JR., City Council Member
• TERRY DOYLE, City Council Member
• MELICE HAMILTON, City Council Member
• GWENDOLYN LOWE, Financial Director
• TERRELL CHIPP, Utilities Manager
• RICHARD "RICHIE" BRAUN, City Attorney

Their contact information is:

Website: http://historicmidway.com
9397 E. Oglethope Highway
Midway, Georgia 31320
Phone: (912) 884.3344
Fax: (912) 884.5107

I'm certain that there are others complicit in this scandal as well…

I want to know which one of you owns a stake in a juice or beverage company? Or has a family member with a financial stake in one????

Hey Police Chief, now FDA food inpector, Kelli Morningstar: Great job cleaning up the streets, ace. Just say no to lemonade!

You all should publicly apologize to the girls and their mom for your insensitivity, then immediately pass a public ordinance DRAMATICALLY lowering, or eliminating, the costs for concessions such as these being run by children so that they can run honest and profitable micro-businesses. They're not running the streets, doing drugs or not otherwise causing mayhem like the other kids without something productive to do…

The sad part of this is that the Midway Lemonade Stand Scandal is not the only instance in America where GOVERNMENT HEAVIES are going after kid-owned businesses. Perhaps they all are complicit with Barack Obama's current reign of terror being foisted upon small business, entrepreneurism and a free-market economy?

Let's just get down to the Voodoo Hex you have so rightly earned:

voodoo.  vooDOO.  VOODOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Voodoo on you aforementioned scoundrels and beasts of Historic (aka backwoods) Midway, Georgia for dashing the hopes of a joy-filled day frolicking in pool and on waterslides and scaring a few hard-working young ladies turned small business owners in the process. Voodoo on you all of the Federal, State and Local government thugs for otherwise causing the needless plunder of micro-business coffers and leading by way of this shining example of "Too much government is actually good for us all." Voodoo on on you all because you have nothing more important to do with your resources than kill capitalism.

voodoo.  vooDOO.  VOODOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that the good people of Midway, Georgia, nay… AMERICA, who are paying your taxes wake up make make you all HEX-civil servants in very short order.

I had an interesting visit from an investigator with the Division of Licensing of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DOL-DOACS) today. He was on a mission… to root out evil companies who do not follow the rules and fail to post their DOACS-bequeathed agency license number on anything that can be remotely construed as company advertising and string them up by their "short and curlies" for failing to obey FL F.S. 493, heretofore simply known as…

The Law.

Apparently, this all started with an email sent from Dprice3844444@aol.com to the DOACS-DOL's Bureau of Regulation and Enforcement copying a Spy Shop website that had listed approximately a dozen or so Florida private investigation agency's names, websites and company profiles; my agency was one of them. The problem, however, was that in doing so the webmaster did not post the agencies' DOACS license numbers, too, thus the reason for the visit. Undoubtedly my fellow advertisers-in-crime will be receiving visits as well.

Herr Harrell, Yer papuz puleez…

Then I had the wonderful experience of getting cozy with the (VERY POLITE) investigator for 45 minutes while we went through all of my agency documentation, advertising pieces, my complete online presence (and if you know anything about CompassPoint Investigations you know that we have a MASSIVE presence on the Internet through the various divisions of my company) and various state and county required documents, notices and posters.  I did find it a bit disconcerting that the investigator was working from old documentation and that the DOACS was sending investigators out on the basis of an unsigned complaint.

I feel like I've had my first colonoscopy and I'm not yet even 40 years old.

Needless to say, all of my documentation is in order. ZERO discrepancies. None.  The investigator agreed that I cannot be held accountable for the actions of others who I do not know, did not ask for the listing or even authorize the use of my company name in connection with this website.  Where the website owner scraped my company information from I have no earthly idea, but I suppose that I do appreciate the link-love. I harbor no ill-will to the spy shop.

So now I am sitting here getting worked up over the pettiness of this whole exercise and I just had to determine on whom I am going to cast this next Voodoo Hex; after all, I cannot in good faith send a hex via email and hope for it to have its intended consequences.

Surprisingly, it really wasn't all that hard to find out who the lucky recipient should be… here's how I did it:

First, I obtained a copy of the original complaint through an FOIA request. Here is the top page of the copy I was provided (click on image to make picture larger);

Noting that the complaint was sent via email by a "Dprice3844444@aol.com" I conducted a search on Google of Dprice3844444@aol.com which immediately led me to an interesting and gratifying find with almost no effort (click on image to make picture larger):

This is a screenshot of the first result in my Google search for Dprice3844444@aol.com. If you click on the link it just takes me to a page that lists Staples' corporate office address and a long list of customer reviews for Staples. It was easy to cobble together the address from the original search results:

706 SW 27th Ter, Boynton Beach, FL 33435

Looking at the source code of the web page I did a quick search <Ctrl+F> on "706 SW" and the following source code came up:

In a message dated 11/10/2010 10:18:21 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, dividends@staples.com writes:<br />
Hi David, <br />
<br />
Staples Rewards, like coupons, are time sensitive and must be used before the expiration date. Since your December 2009, January 2010 and July 2010 Ink Recycling Rewards have expired, we are unable to reissue these Rewards to you. <br />
<br />
If you have any additional questions, please contact us at StaplesRewards@Staples.com or by calling 1-800-793-3320 Monday through Friday, 8:30AM-8:00PM EST.<br />
<br />
Thank you, <br />

<br />
Kristina Rowden<br />
Staples Online Rewards Team<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Original Message Follows:<br />
————————<br />
<br />
firstName_req: david<br />
lastName_req: price<br />

emailAddress_req: dprice3844444@aol.com<br />
streetAddress1: 706 sw 27th terrace<br />
streetAddress2: <br />
cityTown: boynton beach<br />
stateProvince: FL<br />
zipPostalCode: 33435<br />
phoneNumber_req: 561-732-6947<br />
customerNumber: 2176162325<br />
orderNumber: <br />

comments: have #1959 3217 6162 3254,9921 5217 6162 3257, and 6116 2217 6162 3255 value rewards coupons the stoore in boynton wouldn't over ride for me to redeem.how can i redeem these?<br />

Seeing that the entry was dated 11/10/2010 it was much easier to find the entry in the very long list of comments. Here is a screenshot of the entry in question (click on image to make picture larger):

Wow! That is A LOT of very personal information to release into the wild; I certainly wouldn't want all of this out there if I was concerned about my anonymity:

Name: David C. Price
Email: dprice3844444@aol.com
Address: 706 SW 27th Terrace, Boynton Beach, FL 33435
Phone: 561-732-6947

So I wondered out loud why David C. Price would even care about The Law and I suppose for a few minutes I considered that this guy was another private investigator wallowing in his own failure as an agency owner and took solace in the warm comforting knowledge that he was causing grief for others, when clearly the agencies listed on this spy shop website probably had no fucking idea they were listed on this site to begin with and a simple fucking search of the DOACS-DOL license verification web page would have confirmed that everyone listed was properly licensed.

How about a courtesy call instead, Mr. Price???!?!?!!?

So I decided to dig a little deeper, hoping against hope that I would find some sort of satisfaction in the fact that, PERHAPS, David C. Price was not a miserable ASS-HAT and was just doing his duty as a private investigator attempting to maintain the good name of all Florida Private Investigators by weeding out the unlicensed scum masquerading around as real professionals thereby maintaining the chastity of our good and most honorable professional names…

David Charles Price is a security guard.

The uncomfortable sound of silence….

Now rage:

WTF???? I mean, W….T….F….??!?!!!?

Breathing. Deep breaths.

Maybe he owns a security guard company??? No record online of that either… just a fictitious business registration for "P & P Machine Co" back in 2007, otherwise I could not find a business belonging to him or of which he is a corporate officer via SunBiz.org.

http://www.sunbiz.org/pdf/3495004E.pdf

Oh no… Please tell me that this wasn't your post, too:

"everybody needs to start filing complAINTS WITH THE FEEDERAL TRAE COMMISSION ON CRAIGSLIST.FOLKS WHO HAVE CREDIT CARD SCREWUPS,GO TO THE SECTION ON FRAUD AND FILE IT WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMANT ONLINE.RIGHT NOW FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON,MY ACCOUNT IS ON HOLD,AND I CANNOT GET ANY ANSWERS FROM THESE FATHEADS.FILE COMPLAINTS WITH THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU OF SAN FRANCISCO.FILE COMPLAINS WITH THE SAN FRANCISCO NEWSPAPERS,LET THEM CHECK IT OUT AND RUN COPY ON THE FATHEADS – DPRICE3844444@AOL.COM 1/5/11 8:24AM"[sic]

Alright, I get the point now. You just like to complain. Whining because your Craigslist account was put on hold? Calling them Fatheads… and urging others to file complaints with the FTC and the BBB? Oh my God. I guess we just have an aging bow hunter who calls himself "stringboy" relegated to a security post who fancies himself in another life to be machine-gunning Super Cop. Good job, Ace, you really rid the world of investigative evil-doers with that last switch-flip of the Bat Signal. If I lived in that house of yours (there is a picture of that place online) and made as many spelling and grammatical errors as you, I'd be pretty pissed off as well. (You see, I REALLY get frustrated when I cannot effectively communicate or remain coherent as well.)

I really could go much much further and really dig into your publicly available records but I've wasted an entirely good day today because of you and your petty little bitch-boy antics already, so let's just get down to the Voodoo Hex you have so rightly earned:

voodoo.  vooDOO.  VOODOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Voodoo on you David C Price of Boynton Beach, Florida for being a complaining tattle-tale, sending the law after a handful of hard-working small business owners like me and for otherwise causing the needless plunder of our Florida DOACS coffers. Voodoo on your Craigslist account also, just because it obviously really pisses you off and causes great consternation. Now you know how I feel having been through my day today.

I can't wait to see what you're going to do when you finally find and read this post! You'll probably totally flip your lid and do really crazy stuff… or not… because I'm sending an extra large sized helping of Voodoo your way and to quote you quoting others, "well,to quote robert duval,"i love the smell of napalm in the morning.""[sic]

voodoo.  vooDOO.  VOODOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW… Thank you, David, for recycling your used ink cartridges and setting a good hexample for others.

Disclaimer: On the date of this post, 3/3/2011, CompassPoint Investigations is/was a private investigation agency licensed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. FL PI #A 2500251

It took 1 year and 11 days for a priority mail flat rate envelope I sent out to a private investigator continuing education client to be returned to me as "undeliverable; attempted unknown."

Yep.  The postal service put such a priority on my mail that it either took them 376 days to attempt to deliver the package in the first place or over a year to return it to me.

So I visited my local Postmaster in an attempt to find out what happened and perhaps get a refund on the $4.60 I spent for priority mail handling and delivery confirmation services and all I got was, "Wow! Something went really wrong there didn’t it?"

He admitted that both the "to" and "from" addresses were valid and properly formatted and suggested that I call the post office in Corpus Christi, Texas as a follow up to my visit with him.  Of course, the delivery tracking number was too old to be of any use either.

As to the refund request:  "Priority Mail usually arrives in 2 to 3 business days but delivery times are not guaranteed.  Services have been rendered." there was nothing he could (would) do.

I found the entire experience fairly predictable really; the typical government employee deer in the headlights followed by the "I really don’t give a crap about your business as long as I am still guaranteed my government pension" attitude is fairly cliche.

voodoo.  vooDOO.  VOODOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Voodoo on you U.S. Postal Service for potentially pissing my customers off, hurting my business and squandering the $4.60 I paid in postage when I could have put an entire gallon of gas in my Ford Expedition for the same amount and gotten the exact same thing: NOTHING and NOWHERE.

Hexpedited mail?  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  That’s funny.

I hate domainers.  They’re like the asshole of the Internet.  I really, really hate them.

Cybersquatters really; they’re taking up all the best URLs and clogging up the World Wide Web with crap. 

Take my experience today for example:  So I’ve decided to create a new blog about phishing and post each phishing email I get for content so I need to find a really good website address, something that kind of fits my character and sense of humor.  So I start the usual search by typing the URL I really want, gonephishing.com, into my web browser hoping to get an error message indicating that the website does not exist and then I could go and register it, but HELL NO- I get one of those typical domainer web pages that has all of the "related searches" links that take you to a Google ad sense page where they hope I’ll click on another link and Google or Yahoo will pay them a few cents for the click.

At least this site didn’t create a zillion pop-up and pop-under ads and redirect my browser to a penis enlargement or Adult Friend Finder site. 

Domainers typcially rely upon "type in traffic," meaning that they are betting on Internet users to type the exact URL into their web browser in order to land upon the site. 

There is no question about it- some Domainers make A LOT of money but they have to own thousands of premium names or typos (hoping that you’ll mis-type or mis-spell a popular website address) but damn… gonephishing.com???

Who’d just type that in, except for maybe me?  I wouldn’t be so pissed off if the domain owner at least had the courtesy to put a price tag on it or indicate that the domain is for sale.

So I moved on and have found all of the following URLs are also taken too:

gone-phishing.com
deepseaphishing.com
phishing101.com
flyphishing.com
phishingemail.com
smellsphishy.com
smellslikephish.com
somethingphishy.com
gophish.com
bigphish.com

I could go on and on but it appears useless…

So what’s the f’n point of registering gonephishing.com if the owner couldn’t hope for even a decent amount of type-in traffic and the domain is apparently not for sale?

Yes, Dear Reader, I’m quite sure that the point is simply to piss El Scott Harrell off and the owner of gonephishing.com, Gregg Ostrick of GNO, Inc. of Birmingham, AL has done just that today. 

Hence today’s well-deserved voodoo hex of the moment on Mr. Ostrick, specifically, and other domainers, in general, who own URLs that I have wanted in the past or may want in the future.

voodoo.  vooDOO.  VOODOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Voodoo on you Gregg Ostrick for being a domainer.  Voodoo on you too domainers for registering millions of domain names and posting infinite amounts of useless garbage on web, all so you can make 2 or 3 cents from some moron who takes the bait and clicks on a Google ad sense link.

This search has left me hexausted so I’ve finally settled on SmellsPhishyToMe.com.  Check it out.

.

Today’s Voodoo Hex of the Moment goes out to Capital One Financial on behalf of the honest, hard-working card holders out there being flogged by rising interest rates on their Capital One credit card’s annual percentage rates (APR) for no other reason than an apparent bail out over their failed mortgage unit on the backs of their lowest risk customers.

If you are considering carrying a Capital One credit card, please read this story and do a little research before making a decision to apply.  You'll thank me later.

So, yesterday my wife calls and she is absolutely furious.  She rarely gets so pissed off that she can hardly put a few words together and form coherent thoughts, but yesterday my unflappable wife was "en fuego."

Understand that my wife’s part in the following conversation must be read in the context of anger and frustration.  My part should be read with mild and soothing tones- the kind of voice you might use while trying to calm a pack of rabid dogs that have you backed into a corner:

She called, I answered the phone. 

Wife:  She blurted out, “Those rotten bastards!”

El Scott:  “What’s wrong, Honey?”

Wife:  “Those assholes!”

El Scott:  “Who?”

Wife:  “Capital One.”

El Scott:  “What’s wrong with Capital One, Darlin’?”

Wife:  “They jacked my credit card interest rate to 19.9%!”

El Scott:  “Huh?  Why did they do that?  Did you miss a payment?”

Wife:  “Scott. I haven’t missed a payment in over a decade.”

El Scott:  “Then why…”

Wife:  “They just did and offered no explanation other than to say interest rates are rising and this is a company wide move.  They’re raising interest rates on everyone.”

El Scott:  “Did you call them and ask for a lower rate?”

Wife:  “That’s why I am so furious!  They didn’t give a rat’s ass about me, they wouldn’t let me speak to a supervisor, refused to take into account that I have been a customer for over 15 years, never missed a payment, never been over my limit and they simply acted like they don’t care.  There is NOTHING I can do, their decision has been made.”

El Scott:  “Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that.”

Wife:  “You just don’t understand.  You’d be really pissed off too and be blogging about it before you even got off of the phone with those bastards.  You’d unleash voodoo hexes and call the CEO of Capital One Financial (Rich D. Fairbank) at home tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.  What am I going to do?” 

“I have been a customer of theirs for probably 15 years and THEY DON’T CARE.  The customer service rep said that I could close my account with them if I did not like the new rate. I asked her how it was even possible for a rate to go up 10% without any derogatory credit history… how that was remotely in-line with the rising interest rates.  Bad Credit repair can help you better your financial future.She had no answer except to say something to the effect that it was happening across the board to all Capital One card holders and that there was nothing to be done about it.”

“It pisses me off that I can work hard and have an almost perfect credit score (we take our credit scores very seriously) and be a loyal customer for almost 15 years then they would just shit on me like this.  This was my first credit card!”

El Scott:  “Are you carrying a balance with them?”

Wife:  “Maybe a hundred dollars. I’m gonna close my account!  “F” those people they’ll get what they deserve in the end when their customers start cutting up their credit cards.”

El Scott:  “I just can’t believe that they are doing that after this huge advertising splurge with the “What’s in your wallet?” campaign.  I wonder if any of this has to do with the fact that the Capital One Mortgage division is being shuttered and they’re having to sac a bunch of employees.”

Wife:  “Serves them right; they were probably predatory lenders writing subprime mortgages for people who bought way more house than they could afford.  But why the hell should their bad decisions and a bunch of people defaulting on Capital One home loans have to affect me and my credit card APR?  That’s bullshit.  Once again I am having to “feed the dolphins” (I’ll explain the euphemism later) and taking it in the ass to subsidize the rest of these morons.”

El Scott:  “Sooooo, are we going to the Yacht Club tonight?”

Wife:  “I told you that you wouldn’t understand.”

Click.  She hung up.

Please understand, my wife is a genteel Southern woman and a consummate business professional who would prefer to use “Bless their heart.” rather than “Those Assholes!” so you can kind of get an idea of the fury she was in over being dumped on by “C1.”

The reality here is that my wife rarely carries a balance on her credit card; while she is a low risk customer, she is not a valuable customer.  Credit card companies earn income off of the interest rates they are charging and they are making almost nothing on my wife’s account.  Since there are real costs associated with servicing and maintaining the account, paper billing, administration, customer service calls, postage, etc., they are probably losing money on my wife and hundreds of thousands of their other lowest risk customers.  Raising the APR on these customers, then taking an indifferent attitude towards the resulting account closures is probably a good financial move, though no one really wants to hear that when we all expect to be treated like royalty after years of loyalty and being a “good customer.”

This is where I lose all respect for Capital One.

If this is their strategy (“put up or shut up,” really) then why don’t they have the balls to just come out and close unprofitable accounts altogether like Sprint Wireless did a few months ago and then admit it?

I have more respect for those companies that make fiscally correct, but immensely unpopular, decisions and say, “Yeah, so what?” than those that hide behind a clearly thin and implausible pretext being espoused by customer service reps reading from a script.

The truth may be that they cannot close these accounts because they would be adversely affecting the credit ratings of its ex-customers; length of account history is a very important factor in the algorithm used to compute credit scores.  I know that if Capital One closed my wife’s account without cause and her credit rating was negatively affected as a result that there would be hell to pay.

What if it happened to a hundred thousand customers?

Can you say Class Action lawsuit?   

Things are not going to go well here in any event; for a taste of the general disgust of many many many other Capital One Credit Card customers out there who find themselves in the same situation all you need to do is Google “capital one credit cards raising rates” and you will definitely get an eye-full.

It is for them that I curse Capital One with this Voodoo hex, but most especially I hex them for my wife:

Voodoo on you Capital One Financial, Voodoo on you Rich Fairbank and Voodoo on you too Capital One Board of Directors for plying bait and switch games with your “fixed rates;” for raising my wife’s 9.9% fixed interest rate to a variable rate of 19.9% with no regard to her 15 years of loyalty and stellar credit rating and lastly, for hiding behind the pretext of “nationally rising interest rates.”

Voodoo, VooDOO, VOODOOOO!

I am going to throwing in an extra heaping of Voodoo on you for insulating yourselves from your genuinely upset (and vocal) customers by putting those poor customer service representatives in the line of fire.  They honestly do not get paid enough to have to endure the abuse that you are bringing upon them.  You all should get in touch with your customer’s growing resentment and answer the phones personally; perhaps you would rethink your current APR debacle if you couldn’t hide behind those poor souls. 

VOODOO!

I hexpect that corporate greed will be laid bare when the Fed lowers interest rates and Capital One does not follow.

Did you know that Bad Credit repair can help you better your financial future?

With America Online’s new advertising space in my email read window, AOL has managed to add more advertising inventory into an already over-stuffed package- again, foisting more advertising upon its subscribers and reducing the number of exclusive ad-free member services provided for my $14.95 a month.

Why is it that I continue to PAY for AOL service but must continue to suffer through more and more advertising schemes?  I ponder this question (aloud) today in my Voodoo Hex of the Moment.

First off, I understand advertising and advertising inventory and generating revenue as a result of selling advertising.  I even understand affiliate marketing and how to use joint ventures to capitalize on advertising inventory.  I get it.  I am pro capitalism and do not begrudge anyone for trying to make money via advertising.  BUT… my understanding of the concept behind paying a subscription fee was so I either had access to exclusive content or not being subjected to a relentless advertising assault. 

I readily accept advertising when I use FREE services.

America Online has failed it’s subscribers here and it would appear to me that they really don’t care; by industry insider accounts, subscribers don’t fit predominantly into their long-term plans.  Infoworld.com had this interesting nugget (pointing out the obvious really) in an article concerning AOL’s newest attempt to expose more advertising space to its subscribers:

"AOL has in recent years been trying to shift its business away from its traditional "walled garden" model, where most revenue comes from fees subscribers pay to access proprietary content and services. Instead, AOL is moving towards a Web portal model, trying to attract as many Web surfers as possible to its sites with free content and services, and making money from online advertising."

Yes, I have ads in my email read window now…  And not just simple text ads or static banner ads but HUGE, GAUDY, ANNOYING and DISTRACTING advertisements.  I cannot read my email without catching these ads in some part of my vision and going into sensory overload. 

Looking back, I remember how truly irked I was when AOL started inserting ads before its video news clips; they were previously ad-free.  These ads are often 15 to 30 seconds long and precede the short news clips, which are sometimes less than a minute in length.  One day a few months ago I figured that I watched 4 minutes and 18 seconds of advertisements in exchange for 10 minutes and 23 seconds of video content.  Not a good trade-off for my time.  What I found most annoying was that I was presented with only 4 different advertising spots (being repeated as many as 5 times) during this test.  Things have not changed since I made this observation several months ago. 

I complained and received the canned answer subscribers most often get while leaving less than positive feedback for AOL, it goes something like, "I understand that you are not happy with __________ (fill in the complaint of your choice) and we appreciate your honest feedback; it helps us to understand and improve our service…  Currently there is no alternative to ___________ (reiterating the source of your complaint) but we are always trying to improve our service… (blah blah blah)."

I continued my subscription with AOL simply because I enjoyed having all of my national and world news in one place and several email boxes to send junk email.  From time to time, I need to look up AOL member profiles and or use an AOL email address as a pretext cover in my private investigation business- I can do all of that for free now.  In fact, I found out a few weeks ago that most of the America Online I use everyday is actually free! 

AOL:  With your news channels being offered on the ‘Net for free , please remind me again, exactly, why I continue to pay you anything at all? 

Dear Reader:  Yes, I am a dumb-ass.  I admit it and perhaps the Voodoo Hex should be on me here.  In my defense, I failed to get the AOL memo indicating that I was paying $14.95 a month for FREE AOL services- hence the Voodoo Hex on them today.

Some members who are on the fence about whether to leave AOL have stated that they want to keep their email address.  I had long ago given up using AOL for my primary email service because there was a several month period where I could neither trust that I was receiving all email that was being sent to me nor believe that others were getting all of the email I was sending.  I had several clients upset with me over undelivered communication via AOL email.

Shortly afterwards came the "Roll-over Ads," the advertisements that roar to life with animation and sound the instant your mouse pointer moves across the advertisement’s banner space.  These things take up a large amount of computer screen "real estate" with just the slightest intrusion into the advertising space, obscuring everything underneath and interrupt anything I am doing at the moment.  After a while I have become a bit shell-shocked by the sudden explosion of advertising and have learned to keep my hand off of the mouse when I do not need to use it.  When I do use the mouse I am very careful to navigate my way precisely to the target- avoiding dragging the pointer across any suspect advertising territory. 

I may have some form of post traumatic stress disorder as a result; I break out into a cold sweat at the thought of moving the mouse pointer these days and just last night I dreamt I was a mouse pad. 

About the time this was fully ingrained into my Internet surfing habits (don’t roll-over ads and everything will remain calm) I started getting new animated advertisements heaped on me via America Online which didn’t even require any external action on my part at all accept to load a new page and BAM! a new advertisement- replete with animation, strobe effects and even sound.  Of course they are intrusive as well.  I got one from the US Army this morning in fact.  However, the ones that truly PISS ME OFF are the ads where the ad’s designer obscures or hides the traditional "close" button (you know the box in the upper-right corner with the "X" in it) so that I am forced to either watch the commercial or be exposed to most of it while I hunt for the little "X."  Yep, that one gets me steamed every time.

But again, I persevered only because of the AOL news channels I believed were exclusive membership benefits.

Uhhhh… NO.  Not so exclusive.

With the appearance of advertising in the last ad-free safe haven I had on AOL, my email read window, I have taken a short inventory of the reasons why I continue to be a paying subscriber and have lost interest in maintaining my subscription.  I have been an AOL subscriber for a very long time (10+ years) but I am jumping ship as soon as I get all of my e-zine subscriptions and email notifications sorted out and transferred to another email address.  AOL has become obtrusive and its subscription is worthless to me.  If you read the blogs, it would appear that other subscribers feel the same way and AOL will continue to lose millions of members.

If you own stock in AOL… good luck with that.

A Voodoo hex on you, AOL, for giving me this facial twitch which acts up every time I anticipate using my mouse, and for exposing me to so much advertising that I choose to watch commercial-supported TV in order to take a break from so much advertising, and most of all- for failing to send me the memo that I was paying for FREE services. 

Voodoo, VooDOO, VOODOOOO!

So with that out of the way, AOL finds itself in a very exclusive membership community of its own:  "The El Scott Harrell Voodoo Hexed Club"

Sincerely,

An hex-AOL subscriber.

So it’s come to this… Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC, a big New York City advertising agency, has decided to sue a small time blogger into fiscal submission after the defendant apparently hurt their delicate feelings.

Basically, Lance Dutson, owner of a blog critical of the Maine Department of Tourism has been sued for defamation, libel and copyright infringement by the advertising agency it hired to run its tourism campaign.  Dutson posted a mock-up of an advertisement created by Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC on his blog and mentioned a few times along the way that Maine was wasting its taxpayer’s money with this advertisement (and indeed its current campaign) and this somehow constitutes libel and defamation.  Apparently Warren Kremer Paino believes that Mr. Dutson infringed on their intellectual property rights when he posted the ad too.  Boo f’n hoo.

After looking at the advertisement in question produced by Warren Kremer Paino, I’d be concerned too.  It looks like a fourth grader put it together… and I mean NO OFFENSE to fourth graders.

To think that Warren Kremer Paino included a telephone sex line number in the original mock-up of the ad makes me wonder (aloud) just what type of clients do they take on the down-low over there.

The most preposterous part of the lawsuit was the extraordinary action of its attorneys to sue Mr. Dutson for each of the six different images used in the montage advert (at $150,000 a pop) rather than treating the entire ad as one image.  One of the IP lawyers I work for laughed so hard he literally sounded like he fell out of his chair.  He and I both agreed that this move sounds more like "shock and awe" rather than "tort and law," which only goes to my hypothesis that this lawsuit is more akin to an "extort and gag" operation rather than a bona fide claim of the violation of specific intellectual property rights. 

Trust me, Dear Reader, if I even felt a tingle of the possibility of a copyright transgression in this case I would be putting the smack down on the violator instead.  (Who can forget my exposition on the Glenn Canady matter?) 

You can read about the lawsuit filed against Lance Dutson by Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC by referring to this Boston Globe article: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/04/28/blogger_who_criticized_maine_tourism_office_faces_lawsuit/

Let’s get to the meat of this Voodoo Hex of the Moment and why I am so worked up this morning:

We have the right to free speech but it has increasingly become a very expensive right to exercise…

Today it seems that if someone publicly expresses an opinion about another (business or entity) that is contradictory to their carefully crafted image or brand then the offended just sues the offender, regardless of any possible merit to the claim.  That’ll shut ‘em up, right?  I mean, who has to have a spine or thick skin these days when you can subjugate or obliterate your adversary with a legal summons?  This is typically referred to as a S.L.A.P.P. or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.  There is hope… ANTI-SLAPP!

Refer to my blog’s most important precept- “Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”

Mr. Dutson, a self-proclaimed middle class guy from Maine (one of the poorest states in the United States of America) and father of three children may not be found liable, ultimately, for his trespasses but the financial toll his defense will take on his family will be nothing short of catastrophic.  In intellectual property cases it often costs a whole lot more scratch to defend a suit that it does to bring one.  He’s lucky he has some heavy hitters on his side; First Amendment lawsuits tend to rally champions to the cause.  This highlights our nations need for Federal SLAPP legislation; law firms and their clients who have been found by the court to have brought a SLAPP suit should not only have to reimburse the defendant but be subject to harsh penalties, too.

Subjugate or Obliterate.  In my most humble opinion, I am sure that this is exactly what Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, LLC has intended to accomplish: the ruin of an outspoken Maine small business man concerned with the mismanagement of Maine’s number one domestic product- travel and tourism after he would not succumb to the yoke of their will. 

I applaud his efforts to stand up and fight for his right to criticize government and to question the handling of its resources and his tax dollars.  I implore you, Dear Reader, to visit his website, contribute to his cause in some way if you can, and personally encourage him to fight for what he believes.  I see a lot of bloggers posting the story but most of them don’t have the balls or the ability to form or express an opinion and then follow up with a call to action.  I personally sent an email to the head of Maine’s Department of Tourism, copied the Governor of Maine, the heads of the State Senate and State House of Representatives, WKPA and MDT’s PR firm telling them I would NEVER visit Maine again, at least not as long as the department head was in place and WKPA remained under contract, and that he should be held personally responsible for the actions of his subcontractors.  It took me 5 minutes.

Support this uber-American.   

If you are as pissed off about this as I am, please send Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, LLC an email, better yet fax or call them, letting them know exactly how you feel about lawsuits whose primary aim is the wholesale extortion of our most sacred right- the unalienable right of free speech.  Let WKPA clients know that you will no longer support them because of their choice to retain Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, LLC.  Their clients include The New York Palace, the Maine Department of Tourism, the Alex Hotel, Helmsley Hotels, T. Anthony LTD, Delta Dental, Hershey Resorts, Sony, Cushman & Wakefield, The Four Seasons, Bulova, American Express Corporate Services and others. 

WKPA contact information:

Eml:  wcrandall@wkpadv.com
Ofc:  (212) 686-2914
Fax:  (212) 686-5652

If nothing else, create your own Voodoo Hexes and unleash them upon those who seek to quash American liberties through frivolous lawsuits.

A Voodoo hex on you and your litigation, Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, LLC. 

Voodoo, VooDOO, VOODOOOO!

Finally, I would like to give Mr. Dutson the biggest possible props for his description of Maine’s tourism, "it’s being run like a trailer park daycare on its 3rd notice from the Human Services people."

Damn… I wish I would have thought of that one!  I hate it when people snap better than I do.  Voodoo on you too, Mr. Dutson.

Thank you for leading by Hexample.

**Caution, adult language follows… I am just slightly upset by the topic of my Voodoo Hex of the Moment.  If you are offended by such language, voodoo to you too.**

I think it rather ironic that my first Voodoo Hex is going out to bloggers- not all bloggers mind you; specifically, I am hexing the dumb-asses that are posting pictures of their cute little children to their public photo albums.

No… I don’t have a problem with children.  I have a problem with PUBLIC. 

I also have a problem with stupid people that unwittingly providing enough supporting details throughout months of blogging that any sick fucker, who is fixated on said children in the public photo album, could then follow the bread crumbs and easily identify the location, identity, habits, etc. of those photogenic bundles of joy. 

What horror would befall then?

Dumb-asses… voodoo on you.

Here is where I would link to the example of the blog I stumbled onto this morning so that I could easily make my point with evidence and exhibits; in the interest of that entire family’s safety, I graciously abstain.  I will, however, send them a copy of this post so that the hexed understands exactly why she suddenly has this burning itch between her toes that just won’t go away and her husband has come down with the drippy dick. 

Let me paint the picture for you too:

So there I was, cruising the world of blogs trying to generate some enthusiasm and ideas for my own foray into this new medium when I came upon a beautiful little girl’s picture in a family blog.  You know, the kind of blog that the lady of the house is creating so that she can share all of her news, stories and pictures with other family members who are far flung and scattered to places beyond the borders of the tiny little ecosphere in which she calls home.  The little girl could not have been much older than 5 or 6 but she had long thick brown hair, big brown eyes, and a smile as wide as Texas; she would melt any person’s heart. 

She was obviously the treasure in that family; there were probably 30 or 40 pictures of her in various places, poses, and other moments little girls often have exploring the world around them.  As I found myself COMPELLED to keep clicking on picture after picture of the little girl; I was smiling and for a moment sharing in the joy that this little girl obviously creates wherever she goes.  I was in a happy place.

Then the tiny little voice in the back of my head, my “Spidey Sense” if you will, started screaming and ranting and raving- just carrying on in a terrible racket… What the fuck?

*****************************
“Tiny voice to Scott, come in over.” 

Yeah, what?

“Do you not get it or what?  Come on man, pull yourself together!  You call yourself an investigator and security consultant… HMMPH!”

SOOOO what?  Let me get back to this cute little girl and all of her magical little escapades!

“Step back from the computer there, Ace.  Settle down, take a couple of deep breaths and tell me what you see.  Put your thinking cap back on for just a moment…”

Holy Crap Batman!

“Well, no shit Sherlock.  Now go write about this, warn the world that blogging is evil.”

I’m not going so far as to say that blogging is evil.  That’s stupid.

“Whatever.  Welcome back to reality there Slick.  Go save a child.”
*****************************

Which brings me back to the point of my voodoo hex, dear reader: shame on you, dangerous bloggers.

The first thing I immediately picked up on was that this little girl’s name was in the title and file name of every picture bearing her likeness!  More horrific than that was the fact that her family’s last name was incorporated into the title of the blog! 

“The Smith Family Blogosphere of Happiness” or some such contrivance.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks… there she was in her little cheerleading costume with the name of her school emblazoned on the front; there she was in front of her gymnastics class in her leotard; there she was at the beach in her cute little bathing waiting by the family pickup truck; and there she was dressed up for Halloween as Wonder Woman pretending to lasso another older girl in front of a house.

It’s not what you’re thinking, I’m not a pervert.  Stay with me here.

Just looking at the pictures I was able to determine what school she was attending, where she goes to gymnastics class, there was a house number above the front door of the home, and GULP!… is that a license plate number on the back of the truck?  Hmmm, isn’t motor vehicle registration information readily for sale to the public through hoards of elicit websites?  (Yes.)

Wow.  What a dumb-ass this blogger is.  She can’t give away much more information than this, could she?  (Yes.)

Reading the last 2 months of this family’s blog, I began to feel a bit ill.  Kind of like that queasiness you got when your Dad told you to go to the closet and select the belt he was going to spank you with…  This is what I found:

Mom and Dad’s name, places of employment for both, name of the little girl, name of an unidentified older girl in many of the family photos, city and state in which they lived, where they were going for vacation in December- posted in October; really, the list goes on and on.

Please tell me that they do not have a listed number… (Sadly, yes.)

The WHOIS information for their blog’s URL listed the blogger’s name, home address, telephone number and email address.

If I meant harm to this little girl, did I have enough information to find and surveil her, looking for the right moment to snatch her and have her to myself?  (Yes.)

Voodoo hexes for every blogger who puts themselves and others in peril through their own carelessness, driven by the overwhelming desire to heap their entire lives upon the public!  There are dangerous people out there; YOU are chiefly among them.

Voodoo, VooDOO, VOODOOOO!

Dear reader I hope you get it… too many terrible human beings have been snatching our children lately and we are making it simple for them to find easy prey.  Safety and common sense doesn’t just apply to beautiful little children out there… it applies to the ugly ones too.

Just kidding…

Safety applies to everyone; don’t be a jackhole. 

Merry Hexmas!