Open Thread – 5/15/2010

Yesterday  I went to the Sprint Store.  It turned out that the trouble I had activating the replacement phone occurred, because the salesmen who sold me the original phone six months ago had made a few mistakes.  He entered my middle name instead of my last name, entered my pin number wrong (I have what I told him to enter written down.), and entered the first street on which I had lived as the answer to the secret question, “What was the make and model of your first car.  It took quite some doing by the staff at the store yesterday, who were most helpful and apologetic, to convince them that I am I.  Walking home, I instructed the phone to sync with a Google account, which I maintain for that purpose only, to recover my contacts and calendar.  When I was halfway home, the phone notified me that it could not do so and advised me to call CS.  So I turned around and walked back to the store.  Grrr!  When they reactivated my account they transferred the ‘lost or stolen’ hold to the new phone by mistake.  So what should have taken an hour, took four.  Then I had to download apps and make half a dozen overdue calls.  So I managed to keep up with comments, but did no return visits.  I plan to visit my whole blogroll this weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:00.  To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Raw Story: "If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the US population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats," Buchanan wrote in a column for WorldNetDaily on Friday. "Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?"

If it mattered, which it does not, why wasn’t that GOP bigot complaining that the other six are all Catholic?

From Crooks and Liars: A group of 27 major donors is vowing to withhold campaign cash from lawmakers who stand in the way of legislation that would allow for public funding of congressional campaigns. Over their careers, the donors have contributed millions to Democratic candidates — and, on limited occasions, Republicans or independents — but they say they’ve had it. And they don’t mind if it means a lack of access.

This reminds me that not all rich people are greedy GOPers.

From Common Dreams: The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a formal notice of intent to sue Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for ignoring marine-mammal protection laws when approving offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Since Salazar took office, the Department of the Interior has approved three lease sales, more than 100 seismic surveys, and more than 300 drilling operations without permits required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act that are designed to protect endangered whales and other marine mammals from harmful offshore oil activities.

If Salazar was the responsible party for violating the law requiring a NOAA permit, he should be fired.

Cartoon:

How’s your weekend?