Quote Of The Day

One morning’s natural calamity has delivered tens of thousands of new VICTIMS. Should we be surprised to see the casualty figures climbing rapidly, as we bid-up our collective transnational guilt? Cynically, bodies mean dollars right now.

The body count has grown in direct proportion to the ever-increasing promises of AID. In the same day that Colin Powell appeared on media defending MY country’s contributions and promising more, the body count climbed from 25,000 to 35,000. In the ensuing three days it seems the number has coalesced around 110,000, a four hundred percent increase from the initial reports. Add in the predicted deaths from typhus, cholera et al and we should just figure for a million plus dead.

It’s funny (in a “spooky” way – to quote Dame Edna) that countries have developed, overnight, an accurate census-taking capability when, even now, they don’t have roads, pharmaceuticals, or sewage treatment plants in their major, and uneffected cities.

~Steve

Steve’s comment, left in response to Ginny’s post Borlaug & Egeland, has been echoing eerily in my ears these last few days as I’ve watched the ‘death toll’ skyrocketing in Indonesia and beyond. Perhaps I’m too cynical for my own good, but it appears to me that Natural Law is at work here: namely, when you reward something, you get more of it. In this case, body counts that are rising exponentially as each day passes. At current rates, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the entire population of Asia dead or homeless within a month.

It also seems Mr. Egeland’s comments have also had their intended effect. We now have Americans racing to ‘prove’ how generous they are and nations competing with one another to see who can provide the highest percentage of aid. Which brings me to another quote:

Generous deed should not be checked by cold counsel. ~Tolkien

Good advice, under the circumstances. Let’s provide all the aid we can, however suspicious the numbers are. The actual numbers aren’t important right now. People need food and clean water to drink. Bodies need to be gathered and buried. Many people are suddenly without homes. Let’s get those things taken care of. But let’s distribute the aid and help based on the experienced eyes and assessments of reliable organizations, not local bureaucrats, whom I trust not at all. They, I suspect, simply want control of as much of this money as they can get and as quickly as they can manage it. For them, this catastrophe is a windfall. For the bureaucrats, dead bodies are a cash crop.

And yes, I include the UN in that group.

BellSouth Update

A report of problems with BellSouth’s Internet service prompted me to check whether BellSouth fixed a privacy problem that I reported earlier. Sure enough, the problem appears to have been corrected. That’s good news.

My impression of BellSouth’s Internet operation is that they are competent technically but have bad customer-service. When I used their “business” DSL service I had a lot of difficulty getting connected and configured, but once set up everything worked reliably.

However, in the beginning, when I needed help, I found that almost every interaction with their sales and support people was a time-consuming ordeal. The sales person promised a grossly unrealistic installation date, and my subsequent calls for technical assistance required me to escalate almost every conversation through a hierarchy of incompetent reps until I reached someone who could actually help me.

It wasn’t difficult to infer that the main problem was the way BellSouth measured its employees’ performance for compensation purposes. In hindsight it seems obvious that the sales rep who misled me about my installation date was being paid in part based on how many new customers she signed up. She probably had an incentive to do whatever it took to convince me to become one of her statistics, even at the possible price of my later dissatisfaction. Since getting new DSL service from any ISP was, at the time, a matter of at least a month, one of the easiest ways to sway prospective customers would have been to promise, on a Friday afternoon, installation by the following Tuesday. And so she did.

Similarly, the tech-support people invariably asked me, formulaically at the conclusion of every phone interaction, whether I was satisfied that they had provided “excellent service.” In almost every case I was not, but the timing and manner of presentation of the question was so loaded as to make it difficult to say anything other than “yes.” By that time I wanted mainly to get off the phone, and the unspoken promise of the tech person’s boilerplate question was that a negative or ambiguous answer would elicit additional questions, maybe some time on hold while one waited for a supervisor, perhaps a burdensome online questionnaire, etc. (Not to mention that the deliberate, almost sullen tone in which the question was asked gave just a hint that a “no” answer would get the rep fired and his children would starve.) I eventually figured out how to game the support system and get the help I needed quickly, but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth, especially given that I was forced to pay premium rates under BellSouth’s business plan merely to get static IP. So when I decided to drop one of my ISPs it wasn’t difficult to decide which one to cancel.

Some of BellSouth’s deficiencies were caused by inadequately trained service people, but I think the main problem was bad management. By using the wrong customer-service metrics they created incentives for employees to waste customers’ time rather than solve problems quickly. At least that’s what I think was going on. Does anyone have a better explanation?

Quote of the Day

From Dennis Prager, one of my favorite op/ed writers:

Wish No. 2: The ACLU will create a leftist Boy Scouts.

The ACLU and other leftist groups are highly accomplished at destroying good institutions such as the Boy Scouts. But they rarely build good institutions. So instead of trying to destroy the Boy Scouts — because the Scouts require its members to make an oath to God and country and because the Scouts believe that boys and men who publicly announce they are sexually attracted only to males should not be Scouts — the ACLU should build something for boys in the image of its values. Since it is so easy to destroy, dear leftists, why not try to build? Start perhaps with a Progressive Boy Scouts that will have no oaths to God and will welcome all males who announce they are homosexual. Then one day we will see which Boy Scouts produces better people.

Amazon It Is

Thanks Fred for pointing out this interesting tidbit:

Maud Newton and Mark Sarvas are boycotting Amazon because, according BuyBlue.org, 61% of Amazon’s political donations went to Republicans — whereas Borders gave 100% and B&N gave 98% to Democrats. Seems a bit harsh to me, but I can respect their stance.

I’ve always liked Amazon. Great layout, fast delivery, and good prices.

Borders and B&N always seemed overpriced (both books and food/drink) with limited selection. Nice to browse, but when you need something specific, Amazon (or the local library) is the place to go. Not to mention the wear and tear public browsing causes at Borders and B&N. If I want to buy a new book or magazine, I rather it be new…

So I won’t be throwing my money at Borders and B&N anymore.

Buyblue.org is a useful site. I’ll be sure to use it to check who the big Republican donors are and buy from them.