Craigslist: Oo-ooh, that smell!

I want to hear from everyone who has had trouble with ads they have clicked on Craigslist. Recently, doing some job searching, I have been getting the same treatment from employers I contacted through craigslist. They sent me a reply to my resume` and say I need to go through some other application to qualify for an interview. Today a reply to a resume` sent me here: http://www.nationalcreditreport.com/lp/ncr1/index.php?cd=32 Being the observant guy I am, I saw the two asterisks by the word Free. I checked the disclaimers and found that the "Free" credit check would cost me $14.95 a month or $179.40 per year. Free? That stuff will grow mighty nice roses, pal! This is a scam. It's phishing. Anyway, I'd had enough, so I reported them to IC3. Have any of the rest of you been having this type of problem with craigslist ads? Sound off!

I also saw a blurb somewhere where law enforcement officials have said craigslist is complicit in millions of dollars worth of prostitution. The owner of craigslist fired back that they had nothing to do with that kind of business. My question would be, if that is so, what lies under the heading Erotic Services on your site? I know those are Marriage Counselors, right? Give me a break!

Windmills, anyone?

Check out this comic strip! Wind turbines may be the wave of the future but in this one they meet up with a blast from the past! Enjoy!

Alternative Energy Revolution

Things They Don't Tell You

I am becoming convinced that, short of one or two tutoring companies I have found, there is no substantive, legitimate telecommuting work available on the entire worldwide web. Every work-at-home or survey site I have responded to ends up being one of very few types of scams or dead-ends. People I know have referred to SPAM as an acronym standing for stuff posing as meat and folks online refer to SPAM as stuff posing as mail. I prefer to think of these sites as SPAW, stuff posing as work. These sites are set up to do one thing and one thing only. They exist to sell the unwary job applicant garbage he or she can ill afford. We will begin at the beginning.

1. Job ads on (fill in your favorite job search site) As often as not there are dozens of these ads set up to trap the unwary. They usually promise outstanding pay. There seems to be no other rhyme or reason to them, however. I have found them on craigslist and other job search sites under General Labor, Writing, Admin, Customer Service, Nonprofit, Marketing and Web. Some are as obvious as the home improvement firm that is supposedly looking for appointment setters. They receive your resume` and respond that you need to fill out one simple form for which they provide a link. The link sends you to a form that allows you to sign up for their home improvement service, as a customer.

Most of these ads will send you an email for your inquiry. The email includes a statement saying you have been approved. I have never been turned down, by the way. There is also a link to go to their site to check out what they do. That's when they start to become a little different.

2. Check out the Terms Of Service carefully! Very few of the sites you end up at will make it clear that you are signing up for a free trial. To get to that nugget, you must dig through the Terms of Service file which is written by lawyers with one purpose in mind. These "Terms" are labyrinths designed to keep those with little time to waste or no legal training from discovering how short is the free period and how high is the price of missing out on that period. The subscription after the trial, some of which are as short as 7 days, can be $69.95 per month or more! For this they provide you with links to either surveys or offers you can complete. Oh, joy! This is another point of differentiation.

3. Offer sites These insidious dens of vipers should be illegal. Consider, they offer you a nominal sum, say $10 to sign up for some "offer" that will cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars over the next year to 3 years. Talk about a Pigeon Drop! And the ONLY way you can get the nominal sum is to commit to the costly contract. These people aren't even honest to the people they are shilling for, because they tell you in the intro literature that you can cancel the offers right away and they will still pay you. They probably know what I know. I used to work for a mobile phone company and I am painfully aware of how hard it is to cancel most of these free trial "offers".

4. Survey sites Some of these also try to suck you into a free trial. They all go through the same start up. They start you out with surveys that extract every bit of demographic information they can get about you. They tell you that this is so they can match you with the surveys that will best fit you. Then the other surveys begin to arrive and you start to notice something. You can spend anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes filling out a survey only to be told something like, "We are sorry but you are not qualified for this survey". After all the demographic info they gather at the outset, how do they not know which surveys you are qualified to complete?

5. Secret Shopper programs So here's the deal! You sign up for their program and then you get to go buy some of their product. Then you write up a report of what you thought of the product and the service and submit it and the register tape for reimbursement and to get paid for your time. This might be nice if you had a steady job to allow you to buy the products in the first place. I put this under that same old rule for applying for work. Never pay to work!

Do you still want to go into a work-at-home scheme? I wish you luck, sincerely. You are going to need it and another good job before you're through!

Toxic TV- Family Guy

"It seems today that all you see
is violence in movies and sex on TV
But where are those good old fashioned values
On which we used to rely" Excerpt from Family Guy theme lyrics

They sure aren't on the Family Guy!

Foist upon us in 1999 by Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy is an on-going cesspool of bathroom humor, sex, gratuitous violence and outright perversion that would make Homer Simpson blush and the kids from South Park snigger all day long. It's no wonder MacFarlane developed this show since he gets to write, direct, produce and play numerous parts. Sid Caesar, you say? Oh, contraire! While there is indeed talent here, it is not suitable for the prime-time airwaves.

Family Guy is a potpourri of sitcom stereotypes. Peter is the quintessential idiotic suburban dad. He is vain, gluttonous, oversexed, morbidly obese and terminally moronic. Of course Lois, his wife, is somewhat more intelligent at times and has a fabulous figure, aka King of Queens or Life With Jim and does not seem to find her gelatinous spouse sexually repugnant. Chris, the eldest son, is a chip off of Peter's warped block in almost every way except sexually. Meg is overwritten as the neglected middle child going through awkward pubescence as she is continually snubbed by her family. Stewie, a Machiavellian toddler, continues to plot ways to take over the world and kill his mother. By the way, if Stewie comes to the point of Oedipal musings, Peter is toast, given the enormous gap in their intellects. Brian, the family dog, talks, smokes, drinks liquor like a fish, gets busy with nearly anything female and has a gay brother. All that aside, Brian is usually the most intelligent and sensible member of the family.

I understand that Family Guy is intended as satire. I understand that we live in a free society with freedom of expression. However, the fact that Family Guy is a cartoon makes it answerable for some of its excesses in pushing the boundaries of decency. I read somewhere that it rated as the top primetime show for kids 2 to 12 at one point. Since this is supposedly not the targeted demographic for this show it begs the question of intent of Mr. MacFarlane and his cast. South Park is not shown on network TV until late night and then I understand that it is an edited version of the cable content. How is it that Family Guy is shown by local Fox affiliates during the hours when kids are coming home from school and being allowed a little TV while dinner is being prepared?

It's just another step in the long, long march toward total repudiation of what used to be mainstream American values. Ten years from now, our mainstream values will probably look just like the ones espoused by the Griffins. Won't that be sad?

Say It Ain't So!

I just saw a blurb from the AP that said the Democrats were blasting Rush Limbaugh for a comment on Ted Kennedy. I'm shocked! Imagine Democrats taking issue with the scholarly erudition that flows like scented honey from the the oral cavity of the self-proclaimed smartest man alive! I would be even more shocked if it were not for one thing.

They are right this time! Rush let a comment fly about the proposed Democrat health care reform bill, stating that the Democrats will likely wish to call it the "Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill." While such may come to pass, it shows poor form, Mr. Limbaugh, to comment that a bill that may be attributed to a man who has recently been diagnosed with cancer which is supposedly inoperable, is therefore going to be named posthumously.

Do not get me wrong! I am not a Democrat, nor am I a liberal. I do not ascribe to Senator Kennedy's politics or his liberal values. I do, however, applaud Senator Kennedy for his many years of service to the causes and values he believes in. I believe we need to try to get back to the type of politics that were practiced by President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill in the early 1980's.

Their political wrangling would go on and on. Then President Reagan would notice it was after 5 pm and call a halt for the day, at which point they would head off to dinner or to the bar. It was civilized. They were gentlemen who had respect for each other. The fact that we communicate our opinions through unofficial channels does not excuse us from similar conduct, sir!