June 2017 – Page 2 – Really Right

X Nailed It on Warren Buffet

In case you missed the dispatch from Davey Jones, no not the one with the nautical locker or the guy that used to be in the 1960’s band, The Monkeys, but the one from Sacramento that is now the State Insurance Commissioner. Yeah, that Davey Jones just nuked Berkshire Hathaway using the full faith and credit of California (and believe me the credit of California is vast). Anyway, take a look at this.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After a year of legal wrangling, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced today that the California Department of Insurance has reached a settlement agreement with Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries to stop the bait and switch marketing tactics used to sell a workers’ compensation insurance product, which led to numerous complaints from employers caught up in the costly and complicated policies.

In May 2016, in response to a complaint by a small business owner and after a hearing by an administrative law judge, the commissioner determined California Insurance Company and Applied Underwriters, both subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway, were selling a workers’ compensation product with illegal side agreements that modified the obligations of the parties under the policy.

Link: Settlement Press Release

I will let X tell you more if he is so inclined but once again we are proven Really Right.

ESPN Layoffs Part Deuce

Sorry about the delay, fellow readers I had “flu-like symptoms” most of last week, likely this was caused by excessive liver damage done by ESPN to my body.

Following the “NFL Live” and “Insiders” shows, both of which were duds, on came Outside The Lines (OTL). This show was pretty good, a journalistic type show that does deep dives into scandals or issues of our time in sports. It is only a half hour show and I guess it only airs a new show once a week. This is a mistake, share this show with the world, and do a new recording daily. This is what journalism should look like.

After OTL the “Happy Hour presented by Captain Morgan” began to air. I didn’t find a single watchable show during this two hour block. Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, His and Hers (more on this bust later) and Highly Questionable are just that, highly questionable TV. His and Hers, and Highly Questionable was just a bunch of race baiting done by hosts trying to get viewers riled up. Both shows could and should be canceled, neither was. Pardon the interruption and Around the Horn featured sports talk similar to political cross talk you see on MSNBC or Fox now. Mostly screaming, inaudible television, featuring people trying to talk over one another, nothing to see or hear in this hour.
Mercifully “Happy Hour presented by Captain Morgan” was over, again severe damage was done to X’s liver, and ear drums from the loud shouting.

Next on the self proclaimed “World Wide Leader” was SC:6 or Sports Center at 6pm eastern. This was hosted by resident Race Baiters Jemele Hill and Michael Smith, same hosts of His and Hers. This Sports Center—just like the Happy Hour show—was a complete waste of resources, talent and TV time. Perhaps what was even worse was that the shows followed a national news network philosophy where when a new show started the same topics were rehashed. This makes for boring predictable TV. Live sports took over from about 5pm until 9 pm then the madness continued. Sports Center at Night (9pm) with Scott Van Pelt was awesome theatre, highlights, mixed with guest commentary, mixed with analysis and personal opinion, I loved it! Like a throwback to the old sports center where ESPN buttered their bread. So if you’re tuning into ESPN try Sports Center at Night with SVP.

After Sports Center at Night, we were back to strange cross talk again. We had Baseball Tonight, it lasted one hour and was filled with random movie jargon from host Adnan Virk. Honestly it was odd, very little baseball discussion and if I didn’t know better, I would have thought I changed the channel without knowing. 30 for 30 followed next, very good stuff, on par with OTL but instead of current event reporting more of reporting in depth on things that happened in the past, such as the Michigan Fab 5 scandal. Much like OTL this is a once a week or even sometimes bi-monthly show. I would expand on this, great stuff. More Sports Center followed this program, and I decided I needed to hit the sheets as it was dreadful. Sports Center Live from Los Angeles it was called. Hosted by Stan Verrett and Neil Everett, and trust me it was strange television, like creepy stoner television. Had a strange episode discussing hockey called “Barry’s Bistro” with colleague Barry Melrose, like I said bizarre.

It’s very clear the network has far more issues with its declining viewership than just the need to lay off 100 anchors. The liberal bias that William and I have detailed over the months is still present, albeit even after said layoffs occurred, anchor Linda Cohn even admitted it. ESPN made bad bets on the sports of basketball and baseball; they are dying and very unpopular with the younger crowd. Basketball could be an exception, as the younger crowd seems to like the showboating and the fact some teams are considered super teams. Football may be king, but the ratings for Monday Night Football, (rights owned by ESPN) were a disaster. So bad they are throwing the “right a bone” and hiring back Hank Williams Jr. to sing the opening again. Also they announced hiring conservative columnist Will Cain, not really sure why but…okay? Cheap thrills, probably won’t work, in an era where we get football on Thursday night, then all day Sunday, we are footballed out on Monday.

Now into the layoffs, sorry for the rambling column but some really talented folks lost their paychecks last month. The list includes but is not limited too; Ed Werder, John Clayton, Jayson Stark, Andy Katz, Chad Ford, Sarah Walsh (upon returning from maternity leave) and Danny Kannell. Werder and Ford were asked to stick around and cover the NFL and NBA draft respectively, Werder said “no, thanks” can’t blame him. Several names on the list were thought highly of by X, others not so much, these were those let go I will not shed a tear for; Roger Cossack was a know nothing legal analyst that got the Barry Bonds scandal all wrong…bye! Britt McHenry, she was human scum and literal trash, just Google her name. Len Elmore, he is a race baiting clown, please go away. Rest assured more layoffs are going to come in future years; you cannot have poor ratings, race baiting and continue on as a profitable organization.

Now, my solution, I would get rid of all the race-baiting idiots that somehow survived the cut down, I’m looking at you Bomani Jones. I would make Scott Van Pelt and Mike Greenberg the people I would build around. Give them both two hour long programs; for Van Pelt, his commentaries mixed in with highlights are amazing. Greenberg has a news breaking persona, give him a morning show and let him re-hash yesterday’s events and interview a star or two or five. Have OTL and 30 for 30 air more often, they are both great journalistic type shows. You can keep some of the back and forth bantering shows, but I would cut them back, these shows are alienating the older viewers. Have more one sport type shows such as the cancelled “Baseball Tonight” show, but do highlights of all games, and commentary from all games, not just games played in very large markets, again you are alienating people. Have Sports Center air more often, again focus on highlights, and inject breaking news, kinda like a real news show. Lastly get rid of the live sports, mostly all the college football, they show like literally every game, seriously when I watched “Dodgeball” I thought ESPN 8 “The Ocho” was fantasy land, now I wonder if there’s an ESPN 10. Showing games like Oregon State versus Wichita State isn’t moving many needles I don’t think, leave that to regional networks. Finally here’s what I’m most upset about, the definition of luck has been redefined, why ESPN didn’t get rid of this anchor….. I don’t know his name but I always can find him by googling “ESPN Howdy Doody A**BAG with painted on eyebrows!

But seriously, the layoffs were done by phone call lasting just 3 minutes, most of those laid off….spent decades in ESPN. Those in NBA and NHL (Hockey) were let go during the playoffs. Those in NFL let go literally a day before the NFL draft, yeah, ok I guess.

Buffet…..you’re next; I’m coming after your Kraft Heinz subsidiary next week!

Totalitarian State to Crush Your Family

If you want a preview of where California is heading once Jerry Brown is termed out and Gavin Newsome or somebody of his ilk is elected Governor then take a look at this article linked on Joe Miller today. Those of you that think “gay marriage” was the end of the trail are sadly mistaken. It was just the opening salvo of a much bigger assault on your freedom to believe in traditional Christian values. In fact, the full force of the State government is about to be directed at scouring your beliefs not only from the public square but your home as well.

Two years ago, those who were paying attention got a preview of this when the State of California threatened to withhold any student loans from colleges that opposed homosexuality. The author withdrew the measure but it has not gone away. The next time it sees the light of day will be with the blessings of the majority party leadership.

Soon litmus tests affirming abortion, homosexuality, and other “rights” will be required for student loans, employment, and benefits but it won’t stop there. For a preview of coming attractions, look to “the great, white North”; Canada.
Link: Joe Miller—Canada’s Big Brother Ready to raid you Home

Below are a few paragraphs from the article. Please read it in its entirety.

So, in the privacy of your own home, as you teach and instruct your own children, you would be forbidden by law to teach them what the Bible said about homosexual practice. And how, pray tell, was the government planning to monitor this?

Quoted in this article is Dawn Stefanowicz

I want to warn America to expect severe erosion of First Amendment freedoms if the US Supreme Court mandates same-sex marriage. The consequences have played out in Canada for ten years now, and they are truly Orwellian in nature and scope.

In Canada, freedoms of speech, press, religion, and association have suffered greatly due to government pressure. The debate over same-sex marriage that is taking place in the United States could not legally exist in Canada today. Because of legal restrictions on speech, if you say or write anything considered “homophobic” (including, by definition, anything questioning same-sex marriage), you could face discipline, termination of employment, or prosecution by the government.

Canada’s province of Ontario just passed Bill 89

This is beyond mind-boggling. It might even be beyond Orwellian. Really now, would even Orwell have predicted that the government could seize your 8-year-old boy if you wouldn’t let him dress like a girl or if you refused to affirm his perceived female identity?

For good reason, Jack Fonseca, a political strategist for Campaign Life Coalition, slammed the new bill in no uncertain terms: “With the passage of Bill 89, we’ve entered an era of totalitarian power by the state, such as never witnessed before in Canada’s history. Make no mistake, Bill 89 is a grave threat to Christians and all people of faith who have children, or who hope to grow their family through adoption.”

And it is not just an era of totalitarian power. It is an era of misguided totalitarian power.

In America, we don’t do things in moderation. We are all in or all out. I think the pendulum in California has swinging towards full-blown craziness. Here, the Constitution is viewed as a suicide pact and a license for excess and tyranny. We are accelerating on a course of societal and fiscal destruction. In fact, we are already over the cliff and waiting for gravity to act. The only remaining question is which cause of death will be listed on the death certificate at the autopsy.

Casablanca or Armageddon?

One of the most memorable lines of the movie Casablanca is, “We’ll always have Paris.” This line refers to the time in Paris when Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) had a summer of love with Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). The only problem was that Ilsa was married, but not to Rick. Yeah, the back story which is shown in the movie as flashbacks ultimately boils down to adultery and poor judgment. Just to make their love affair ok with the audience, Ilsa begins their romance with the belief that her husband is dead.

When I heard what President Trump did yesterday with the bogus global warming agreement that Obama entered us into in Paris, this movie line came to mind. What a shock it was to the Liberal establishment—including both the mainstream media and Hollywood—when they learned that they won’t always have Paris.

President Obama played the harlot and entered into illicit relationships with many of the world’s evils. Obama was a lover of thugs, murders, and charlatans. Obama was hell-bent to reduce the prominence and prestige of the United States. Obama was fine letting both Iran and North Korea advance their nuclear weapons ambitions. Obama was fine with the genocide of Christians in the Middle East. Obama even made sure that our country imported huge numbers of Muslims with no screening or background checks and then placed them in areas of the country without coordinating with state and local officials. Obama refused to enforce the laws on the books to protect our borders and citizens. He also hamstrung our economy with regulatory burdens and federal overreach—mostly via regulations. He also unilaterally entered us into many international agreements without following the Constitutional requirements for such agreements or doing what was in the best interests of our nation. In short, he violated his oath to protect and defend the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. In fact, he did exactly the opposite.

The Paris agreement on global warming is “junk science” of the worst sort. It is based on a number of false premises not the least of which is a false view of that humans are somehow responsible for controlling the climate.

Much of the argument surrounding global warming “science” revolves around carbon. Carbon in our environment has become viewed as something bad. Believers claim that releasing carbon—often via fossil fuels—is bad. Yet these same folks ignore all the natural sources of carbon in our environment. Can anyone say, “Volcanoes”? Oh, these are the guys that love trees, right Al Gore? So if nature is so great, why is it that you so-call environmentalists are the first folks screaming about forest fires? Lightning causes many fires—especially in remote regions—and the natural thing to do would be to let them burn. Eventually the fire would go out. It would either run out of fuel by burning everything up or be doused by water when it rained thus being deprived of oxygen.

Even public school children know that much of the world used to be tropical from pole to pole. The world that we live in now is a virtual desert compared to what it was once like when dinosaurs roamed the world. Plants were everywhere and in abundance. Plants are made primarily from carbon. Trivial question Al Gore, which animal released more methane gas Apatosaurus or Bovine?

By any metric, there is less carbon in our world now than in the past. This being undeniably true, what is the real issue behind global warming?

Philosophically, it’s simple to see. However, before I go on, just remember that believers in global warming and Liberals in general cannot be persuaded by facts. They have no use for them. They are into emotions and have no consistent and coherent way of looking at the world. They are fragmented in their inner being and thus when they look at the world around them, all they see are fragments. Some fragments they embrace and others they despise or ignore. They cannot see the whole because they have no framework to reassemble the broken pieces into their original form. Sadly, when their Creator tells them that they are broken vessels made in His image they reject His counsel. Rejecting the Creator has consequences. Instead of loving their Father in heaven they hate him and anything made in His image.
They hate:
• God—idols, false gods, lovers of self
• Themselves—suicide, transgenderism, body mutilation
• Others made in His image—abortion, murder, genocide
• His creation—pollution, erosion, cruelty to animals

Despite their brokenness, men still bear the image of their Creator. But God is not just our Creator; He also sustains and controls His Creation. Nothing happens to us or our world that is not in accordance with His will. This is another point of contention that I have with the Paris accord folks. This is God’s world and He controls it. It is hubris to think that we can do anything that meaningfully impacts the fate of the planet or its climate.

The believers of things like the Paris accord are worshipers of the creation and not the Creator. Their god is Gaia—Mother Earth—not YHWH.

Such ideas as Paris are a feeble effort to usurp God and replace him with man as the ones controlling the climate—as if we really had any power to do so. Such an assertion is arrogant. Man’s pride was the original sin as it was Satan’s.

President Trump is right in his contention that this accord is trying to put us at a competitive disadvantage to other nations. His job as President is to do what is best for our country. Christ is the ruler of all nations—King of kings and Lord of lords. Trump is our President because right now that is God’s will for our nation.

I’m glad that we have a President that is actually tearing down the strongholds of the enemy. God bless you Donald Trump.

Cord Cutting: The Next Chapter

Our family dumped DirecTV almost 18 months ago in favor of TiVo and over-the-air (OTA) television. We continued our Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions and added Hulu. After the first year, TiVo charges $149.99 annually ($12.50 per month). Thus we are saving about $90 per month from what we were spending previously.

Last month we set our sights on a new target, Frontier Communications (formerly known as Citizens Communications). For the last ten years, we have been paying Frontier about $85 monthly for a landline telephone and Internet service. (By the way, $15 of that amount was taxes.) Our phone number once belonged to my wife’s grandparents and we figure that they’ve had that number since the 1960’s.

Our attachment to the phone number was both sentimental and contractual. Sentimental since it had been in the wife’s family for her entire life and contractual because many years ago Frontier offered us a ten dollar a month discount on our Internet if we agreed to a two year contract. Once the two years was up, Frontier raised their rates back up and as an added bonus, they had us locked into a contract that automatically renewed annually.

Yeah, in case you didn’t know that, auto renewing contracts are legal in California. Without any affirmation on your part, once you enter into a contract, the contract continues to renew unless you take extraordinary steps to terminate it. Frontier threatened early termination fees of up to $400. I have been meaning to stop the auto renewal for several years but they moved the renewal date on me once and then last year, I didn’t attempt it until I was within the 30 day termination window. This clause said that you can’t terminate the contract within 30 days of the renewal date. Talk about insuring corporate cash flow!

However, this year, I called in January to stop the auto renewal. I recorded the date and time of the call and even got a confirmation number for the request. Then if they gave me grief later on, I would take the “this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes” and ram it down their bureaucratic throats if said that I never called.

Just to make sure, in early May, I called Frontier and asked that my service—both telephone and Internet—be terminated on June 12th (the auto renewal date). I called more than 30 days before the renewal just so I wouldn’t have to refer to the January call. I figured that that gave me over a month to switch to another provider and get all the kinks worked out before my Internet was cut off.

I know at this point that some might be wondering why I was with an obscure company like Frontier in the first place? A fair question and one that I will shed light on now before continuing.

You see back in the heyday of Ma Bell, when there was only one phone company, there were certain areas of the country where it was not cost effective for Ma Bell to service. These orphaned areas of the country—and by country I mean rural areas of the United States—were eventually pooled into Citizens Communications. (If you are thinking Roosevelt, Great Depression, and Rural Electrification Administration, then you are on the right track. I’m sure Wikipedia could give you the whole story if you were curious.)

Anyway, flash forward the better part of a century and some of these rural areas are now developed areas with lots of people. Elk Grove—where I live—is such a place. West of highway 99 you have many choices for Internet and telephone including fiber optic cable because this area was once serviced by Pacific Bell; however, east of highway 99 you will find a different dynamic. Your options where I live are Frontier or Comcast, period. There is nothing else and by law there never will be. Two choices and both with a coper cable as its backbone.

With Frontier, they were happy to provide us a blazing (insert sarcasm here) 5.5 Mb per second. I have 11 to 20 devices in my home competing for bandwidth. Frontier’s Internet went down daily—especially the Wi-Fi. We were incapable of doing anything simultaneously on the Internet; even reading books on the Kindle app was a problem. Only when I called to terminate their service did they ever try to offer me more bandwidth.

Note to Frontier: give me your best offer because I’m a good customer; don’t wait until I’m so fed up with you that I decided to leave. If you had voluntarily raised my speed, I probably would still be with you. ‘Service” and “Customer” should be used together not opposite columns in the balance sheet. I talked with several neighbors about your company and found no one willing to praise you. If your Soviet era monopoly ever ends then so will you.

Anyway, after consulting the neighborhood, I reluctantly opted to try Comcast again. We had Comcast when I was first married. Their Internet went down constantly and their television picture—especially HD—was terrible. Only when we went to DirecTV did our TV picture look like it did at Circuit City. At the time, Frontier’s Internet was better. Over the years, Comcast invested in their equipment and Frontier rested on their laurels. Now Comcast offers speeds over 100 MB per second where I live for about the same price Frontier will sell me 5.5. Same price and twenty times the speed!

Anyway, Friday, May 12th was a memorable one. You see, when we got up in the morning both our phone and Internet were shutoff. I asked multiple people at Frontier to terminate our service on June 12. I spoke with both the customer service person that took my call and the “closer” that tried to get me to change my mind and told both people June 12. Again, no customer service.

Meanwhile, I had attempted to prepare for the switch to Comcast. I went on the Internet and set up an account on the Comcast website and ordered a do-it-yourself installation kit. (Note to readers: you likely don’t need the installation kit.) I bought a modem recommended by Comcast’s website from Amazon and tried hooking it up. After re-running the cable thru my attic, and connecting the modem, I found that the cable to my house was literally unhooked at the street. Trying to connect at the street didn’t result in any signal to the modem. All this had happened prior to being cut-off by Frontier.

Meanwhile back to May 12. After getting settled in at work, I tried a live chat on the Comcast website but after 45 minutes, I never got a response. (I think the dreaded firewall blocked the port so I couldn’t connect.) Next, I tried the option for a callback. Amazingly, I was contacted by a Comcast person in less than a minute. The lady I spoke with confirmed that we were not connected at the street and set up a service call to do that. She said we did not need to be there since the cable was just being connected at the street. She also said that she would call on the following Monday to see if everything was OK.

When I got home, the Amazon purchased modem would not connect. Per diagnostic lights, it had a failure. I tried resetting but with no luck. I decided to send it back and try my luck at Fry’s. On Saturday on the way to Fry’s I dropped the modem off at the nearby Staples. Within an hour of taking the Amazon return to Staples, I had a complete refund from Amazon in my checking account. Sadly, the modem purchased at Fry’s would connect but at very slow speeds; not anywhere near those promised by Comcast.

On Monday, true to her word, the lady from Comcast called. I told her the connection was not working like it should. She sent a service tech to my home at no charge. Per our discussion, the tech called me at work and I met him at the house. He crimped new connectors on the cable at each junction point from the street to my modem and used a signal tester on the line. Inside the house, he used his own modem which test at 250 Mb per second and then attached mine. After a reboot, it connected at just over 100 MB per second.

Subsequent, to installation, I’ve had to reboot the modem once to get my Android phone to connect. I also found that the slow connection to the back of my house was due to a faulty cable from the modem to the Cat 6 cable going to my hub. (Proof that not all store bought cables are to be trusted.)

Oh, Comcast is charging me $39.99 for the first year with no extra taxes attached. So far, it’s a much better deal than Frontier. Lastly, on my final bill from Frontier, they are showing a credit even after shutting me down a month early; so much for early termination.