Do Racists Have Low IQs? Studies say they do.

Not only have I been the target of racism, but I have felt the hatred in standing up against people who were being racist and it’s really a very unpleasant experience. The study is a very interesting read. In my experience, the people who were racist, all came from low income and uneducated backgrounds and or from families who actively promoted racism for many years.

I’m not saying this is an excuse, but in my opinion it does present the need for higher quality education and the promotion of tolerance if not acceptance.

Are humans acting like frogs in the the global warming Epidemic

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Confronted by new evidence of global warming, will people react like frogs?

According to an often-told story, a frog will try to jump out if you drop it into hot water but the hapless creature will stay, and eventually die, if you put it in a pan of cool water and slowly bring it to a boil.

A United Nations report to be released in Paris on February 2 will include the strongest warning yet that humans are stoking global warming that may cause colossal damage to nature if, like the doomed frog, they ignore rising temperatures.

Ex-U.S. Vice President Al Gore tells the story with croaking cartoon frogs in his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' to urge more action to save the planet. In his version, a hand dips in and rescues a swooning frog just as the water starts to bubble.

"It's important to rescue the frog," he says. And U.N. officials also sometimes mention the boiled frog as a cautionary tale of the dangers of human complacency about global warming.

There is only one problem -- it's not true.

"The 'boiled frog'...is definitely an urban myth," said Victor Hutchison, a professor emeritus at the zoology department at the University of Oklahoma in the United States.

Continued

Cancel Sprint Account By Writing to the CEO

Successfully resolve customer service issues by writing intelligent well-crafted emails to Gary Forsee, the CEO of Sprint.

20-Apr-2006 00:02:05,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The purpose of this letter is to explain my recent experiences with Sprint. I feel that by conveying this information to you all, I can help Sprint become a better company in regards to customer service. First off, please let me introduce myself. My name is Jason XXXXX, and I have been a Sprint customer for 4 years.
In the time that I've been a customer, I've had to call various departments within Sprint, well over 100 (one hundred) times - with the bulk of them being to customer care - in order to resolve many, many different issues. In many of the cases, one of several things would happen when I called.

1)I would explain my problem to the first level representative, and after some time discussing the issue, I would be transferred to a second level supervisor.

2) During the aforementioned transfer to the supervisor, the call would be disconnected, or incorrectly routed, and I would end up back at a first level representative.

3) The representative would purposely disconnect the call.

4) The representative would refuse to transfer my call to a supervisor.

5) The call would get correctly transferred to the supervisor, who, often after an hour (There was at least one instance, where it took nearly three hours), would eventually find and fix the problem.

Sadly, it almost always resorts to #5 before the issue is resolved. There have been very few cases where a first level representative has managed to a) fix the problem, and b) not incorrectly enter information (such as the mailing address I had updated last night...which I had to do again today - but I digress).
Let us elaborate on the 5 previously mentioned call flows. The most common scenario involves #1, #3, #1, #2, #1, then finally #5, or some combination thereof - that is 3 calls, with a usual minimum of 15 minutes for each of the first two calls, and at least 30 minutes for the final call, which adds up to at least one hour per issue, half of which is to a level 2 supervisor.

I'd like to break these figures down for you. Assuming that a first level representative earns $10/hour (which is perhaps a little high, until you include benefits, etc) and that a supervisor earns $20/hour, we can estimate that each issue will cost Sprint a minimum of $15 in salary costs. I have at least one issue every two months that results in the above scenario. If even a small percentage of other customers have the same experiences that I do, it doesn't take a business major to realize that this doesn't make financial sense. On top of, and due to that, I've been highly considering canceling my account once the contract period expires. I'd also like to explain my most recent issue. Last night, at about 8:00pm, I attempted to pay my bill online at sprint.com, as I do every other month. There were technical difficulties with the website, so I called customer care to pay the bill instead.

Since the difficulties were technical in nature, the representative was nice enough to waive the normal fee that is charged when customers pay their bill with that method. I also asked the representative to change the mailing address on my account (which I had changed several months ago), and after several questions like "How do you spell 'South'?", he assured me that the change was made successfully. This afternoon, I received a call from Sprint, to tell me that I was close to my spending limit (of $300), and that if I did not pay my bill immediately, I risked being shut off. There are two problems with this.

1) My bill as of yesterday, was only $83.07, and even if another bill of ~$83 were to post, that would only put me at just over half the $300 spending limit.

2) When I pressed "6" to speak to a representative, I was assured that my current balance was, in fact, $0, and that I should also speak to customer care to verify that. After much effort (see #2 and #4 above), I was finally informed that the call was made in error, and that I should simply disregard it.

When prompted, the supervisor also informed me that my address had not, in fact, been changed.

In short, there are a few places where Sprint may have some room for improvement.

I would appreciate a call at your earliest convenience, so that we may discuss this more fully. I can be reached by telephone at XXXXXXXX.

Thank you for your time,
Jason

Gary Forsee, CEO Wrote:

I apologize for any inconvenience you may have encountered and thank you
for contacting me. I've asked a member of my team to get in touch with
you to resolve your issue. We appreciate the chance to earn and keep
your business.

Sincerely,
Gary Forsee
Chairman and CEO







Sprint writes:



Dear Mr. [Jason]:

To completely resolve your billing concerns, I applied a credit of
$77.79 to your account to offset the final balance. As a result, your
account is closed and reflects a zero balance.

If you have any questions, you may contact our office by calling
1-877-875-7505. We are available Monday through Friday between 7 a.m.
and 5 p.m., Central Time.

Sincerely,

/Claudia Poe/
VIP Executive Analyst
Sprint Nextel Corporation

File Taxes For Free If You Make Under $52k

You can e-file your federal taxes for free if your adjusted gross income falls below $52,000 using Free File from the IRS.

Paypal SecurID Tokens: The new annoyance is coming

The new and next trendy annoyance in online purchases and transactions. Oh great -- this gets popular and our key ring will be larger than the high school janitor's key chain.

Paypal will sell SecurID tokens to its customers, starting early this year. The PayPal Security Key is a keychain size device that generates a new six-digit code every 30 seconds. Paypal will require signed up customers to enter in order to complete transactions.

Paypal hopes the gadget adds an extra layer of security and helps prevent against account breaches.

Wait...what? From what I know, the biggest security problem is those emails that say, "You need to log in to verify something!"

From PayPal Website- How much does it cost?
There is a one-time non-refundable fee of $5.00*. After that, there's no monthly fee or recurring charge - your extra layer of security is free.

I've dealt with the VeriSign tokens / security things with a company. Pain in the ass. Paypal should be paying us for using them. Paypal sucks to begin with. I don't know if I want a token that ensures my security on a system that is threatened more by their own business practices than outside hackers. Is the token going to prevent them from freezing my balance and dipping into my checking account at will?

This would guard against those emails, because the phisher would need the number from the device to log in and clean out the account. Since that number changes every 30 seconds, he would have to prompt for the magic number on the fake login phishing page, then manage to log in to paypal within 30 seconds after the user was phished. Since the magic number keeps changing, he won't be able to log in more than once, but once is all it takes to wipe you out if you keep money in the account... which I don't. I use it only when I need it... but my banking information is there....

Price Protectr = Refunds For Consumers

Price Protectr is a website that monitors popular online stores for price drops on items you have already purchased, then notifies you if the price drops at any time during that store's price protection period.

Includes stores such as Amazon, BestBuy, Circuit City, Costco, Office Max, Target, etc

Online purchases only

Refunds Please also dos this.
If the product you purchased at Amazon.com within the last 30 days has dropped in price they will credit you back the difference.

Top Ten Most Popular Careers for 2007

US Top Ten Most Popular Careers for 2007

• Network Systems Analysts: The development of IT has led to an increase in organizations seeking installation and maintenance of networked communications. Systems analysts solve problems related to networked computer technology.

• Physician's Assistant: Physician assistants are trained to provide diagnostic, therapeutic and preventative healthcare services, as overseen by a physician. Primary healthcare settings include family medicine and pediatrics.

• Medical Assistants: The growing healthcare sector means more administrative and clinical tasks need to be performed. Other medical assistants can help with clinical tasks. Typically, work takes place in the offices of physicians, chiropractors, podiatrists, ophthalmologists and other health practitioners.

• Medical Records and Health Information Technicians: Case and healthcare records are increasingly used for organizational management and ongoing evaluation of healthcare progress. Records might include patient medical history, symptoms, treatments, tests, outcomes, etc. Medical tests and information management are major growth areas.

• Software Engineers: As IT continues to evolve, so does the work of computer software engineers, who design and develop new computer software systems. The engineer analyses users' needs and designs software or programs to meet these needs.

• Physical Therapist Aides: The number of individuals with disabilities or limited physical function is growing, so the number of assistants who provide services to alleviate the difficulties is set to increase.

• Fitness Trainers: Aerobics instructors and fitness trainers lead groups and individuals in a range of exercise activities. More people are spending time and money on their leisure activities, meaning employment opportunities for fitness instructors will grow.

• Database Administrators: Many organizations now depend on the instant availability of data. Database administrators work with the relevant software to retrieve and present data. They need to understand every aspect of an organization's database system, from its performance to security and the platform it runs on.

• Veterinary Technicians: Expectations for leading edge veterinary care are rising as healthcare in general progresses. Veterinary technicians perform tests, and treat and diagnose medical conditions in animals. Work can take place in domestic pet surgeries, livestock management, wildlife medicine, or pharmaceutical sales or biomedical research.

• Dental Hygienists: As our healthcare involves an increasing emphasis on oral health and retention of natural teeth, work opportunities for dental hygienists are set to grow. Hygienists examine patients' gums and teeth, remove deposits, administer x-rays, and more.

Tax Time: Don't Borrow Your Own Money

Do Not Put A Refund Anticipation Loan On A Prepaid Credit Card

•Refund Anticipation Loans can saddle you with unmanageable debt and unreasonable fees.

•Prepaid Credit Cards are notorious for having things like monthly maintenance fees, inactivity fees, reload fees and expiration dates.

•eFiling with direct deposit can take as little as 10 days.

What The First Digit of Your Credit Card Means

Your credit card's first digit shows where the card came from (industry identifier). Here's the breakdown.

• 1,2: Airlines
• 3: Travel/Entertainment
• 4,5: Banking/Financial
• 6: Merchandising/Financial
• 7: Petroleum
• 8: Telecommunications
• 0,9: Other