Dealing With Telemarketers

I got a call today from a crowded call center explaining in a thick, Indian accent, "Windows is alerting us you have several hacking events on your computer. I am calling to show and help you how to fix that."

This is a common scam: Say "Windows," be exempt from the no call list as you're in Calcutta, and scare someone into buying a product or allowing them remotely into your system where they can make a damn mess. It is dangerous and targets, for the most part, elderly folks who can barely check their email. So fuck those callers.

Me? I animatedly enjoyed the conversation, injecting many "oh yeah?" and "wow!" celebrations while making absolutely sure the very detailed instructions would not directly hurt me. She sent me to the Event Viewer and showed me common errors and warnings not important even enough to show up on my screen. I was very nice and very patient, and when she lied about what those warnings were and the dangers they presented, I asked her to "wait" when she gave me the next instruction, carefully cupped my hands around the mouthpiece, and in my best demon voice said:

WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS SCARING AND HURTING OTHERS. STOP OR YOUR FAMILY WILL BE CURSED. STOP OR YOUR FAMILY WILL BE CURSED.

So... to much? What have you done to play with telemarketers?

Charleston Shoot: How Conservatives Cope

The conservative reaction to the black church shooting in Charleston has been an odd one. I'm used to "it's not a terrorist so it's a crazy person" defense of the singularity of the events despite the singularity of some of what they call terrorist events. But this is different.

Dylan Roof walked into a church after a Bible study and killed nine people.

If Roof had done this and claimed he was an atheist and hated the religious, that would take top billing. "Oh, the persecution! Religion isn't safe in America today!" If he had done this and was a Muslim, he would be an assumed terrorist and been taken very seriously if he'd said he did it to harm Christians in the name of Allah. "The outrage! Terrorism and Sharia Law is taking over America! Christians aren't safe!"

But he took up a flag as his symbol and claimed he was a racist and his intent was to kill black people. He openly said racist things during the shooting. And we get instead lulz about flags killing people, outrage over stores ceasing to sell it, and Hannity saying it's not about race because "how can you take the words of a psychopath seriously?"

Hay, we're not racists cause that guy's nuts and hey what about this innocent flag!?

Why? Because whenever racism rears its ugly head, conservatives don't deal with it, don't discuss it. They blame everyone else like it wasn't them who farted. Fox had some goons on the other day saying it was the fault of the Democrats that this happened. Why? Democrats race-bait and Democrats were racist back in the day. (They conveniently forget basic history and that the racists in the Democratic Party went Republican about 60 years ago.)

But when a racist psychopath is NOT in the news? Fox is rife with commentary in racist code on "urban," "freeloaders," "Obamaphones," "welfare queens," the abundance of black-on-white crimes, and the need to drug test those on public assistance.

And what was our shooter mumbling about when he was filling people with bullets? Blacks raping whites and the free ride they get in our country.

I wonder where he heard that.