Dianetics Pays For Its Own Bad Publicity

From out of the blue, the Dianetics drones started sending me spam. It turns out that they bought an email list from "Database Solutions", whose owner Andy Quinan should know better, since he knows a lot about the Direct Marketing Association's "Do Not Contact" list. My email address has been on that list for many years, so he clearly should not have sold my address to anyone.
What he failed to mention to his client is that by taking their money he was violating the DMA's code of conduct, as well as exposing them to legal liability by repeated violations of the ECT Act. Furthermore, he failed to advise them of the bad publicity they would expose themselves to by annoying the public with their spam drivel.
When I pointed this our to the Dianetics receptionist in Kensington, she said they could do with any publicity (good or bad) raised by this blog. So here it is. I'd hate to disappoint them. After all, can you really trust an organisation that buys mailing lists from disreputable marketers in order to flood the mailboxes of the general public with marketing rubbish? That puts them at the same despicable level as the greedy con artists who sell "Viagra" or "Penis Enlargement Pills" or "Low Interest Loans" via email.
Can you trust the sales pitch of a marketer who knowingly sells bad data? Furthermore, how can you trust an organisation with an existing reputation for hard sell and misleading marketing (such as the Dianetics/Scientology folks). It seems that these marketing types just have no ethical or common sense boundaries. If they can't understand that most email users find spam marketing both annoying and despicable, then they need a reality check. DUH!

Update: Andy Quinan said he got the list from "Brownstone", but they have sent me spam before. This is getting more incestuous by the minute.

A Call to Cryptographic Arms

"This book is not a manifesto. There is not time for that. This book is a warning.
"The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia. This development has not been properly recognized outside of national security circles. It has been hidden by secrecy, complexity and scale. The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.
"These transformations have come about silently, because those who know what is going on work in the global surveillance industry and have no incentives to speak out. Left to its own trajectory, within a few years, global civilization will be a postmodern surveillance dystopia, from which escape for all but the most skilled individuals will be impossible. In fact, we may already be there.
"While many writers have considered what the internet means for global civilization, they are wrong. They are wrong because they do not have the sense of perspective that direct experience brings. They are wrong because they have never met the enemy.
"No description of the world survives first contact with the enemy.
"We have met the enemy.
"Over the last six years WikiLeaks has had conflicts with nearly every powerful state. We know the new surveillance state from an insider’s perspective, because we have plumbed its secrets. We know it from a combatant’s perspective, because we have had to protect our people, our finances and our sources from it. We know it from a global perspective, because we have people, assets and information in nearly every country. We know it from the perspective of time, because we have been fighting this phenomenon for years and have seen it double and spread, again and again. It is an invasive parasite, growing fat off societies that merge with the internet. It is rolling over the planet, infecting all states and peoples before it."

Extract from the introduction to Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, published 2012 by OR Books. You need to read it and act if you want to stay free on the internet.
Update: The book is now also available in Audiobook format from Audible.com and Audible.co.uk. However, it would appear to be an edited version of the follwing two videos. So if you have the spare 4 hours to watch the videos, you don't need to buy the (audio)book.

Enough Pope-Sniping Already!

“Pope Francis I on Argentina’s push for gay marriage: 'Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.' New pope, same old attitudes.” - Daily Maverick newsletter

Don't you just hate it when secular journalists attack religious institutions in the name of political correctness? All those barbed comments about the Pope being "old fashioned" because he opposes same-sex marriage? Often these comments come from the same people who sidestep the issue of our President's many wives and illegitimate children. Such hypocrisy!
FWIW, I am not a Roman Catholic; I am a Christian, and a member of a non-denominational Christian congregation. I made my marriage vows in a Christian church, and I regard marriage as a religious institution, not a civil one. So I find it repulsive when secular society tries to dictate to me what my church can and can't do when it comes to marriage vows. Why should secular society dictate to the church that it may not refuse to perform a marriage ceremony for same-sex couples? Has secular society ever read or understood the vows made in a marriage service?
Most secular society condemns incest and rape, but is largely silent on infidelity and extra-marital affairs, including sex before marriage. So it obviously doesn't regard marriage as a viable institution, and thus condones divorce for almost any reason. It's not surprising then that secular society doesn't have much of a problem with same-sex marriage, since it takes marriage so lightly anyway.
On the other hand, the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage is completely different: marriage is a covenant entered into between a man and a woman with the specific intent of creating a safe environment to raise children. It is a life-long undertaking because children need full-time parents to nurture and support them. Children and parents need grandparents to help and guide them; and uncles and aunts and cousins to provide a secure social environment. Families need a caring community to provide support and security, where children can grow and learn and develop. This includes schools, churches and other social structures.
I thought all of this was obvious, but apparently civil society (which includes journalists) have decided differently. They have decided it is OK for couples to screw around, inside and outside of marriage, and to hell with the consequences. Abortion is permissible if not encouraged; pornography and adult movies are ok in private; gay sex is ok, even at a young age, as long as it is consensual. It's inevitable and logical to allow incest and rape too. After all, there are plenty of movies and erotic literature that celebrate, if not glorify, it. Popular music has song after song that glorifies licentiousness, lust, fornication, etc. We don't even notice how permissive, bent or risqué the lyrics are.
The Roman Catholic Church has been plagued by scandals involving priests who molested under-age children. What about priests who molest grown-ups? The outrage just vanishes, because gay sex is OK, and straight sex is fine. The outrage is more about the "cover-up" than the act itself.
Isn't it inevitable that anyone who opposes "gay rights" is therefore subject to bitter attacks, if not downright character-assassination? People involved in ministry to those with issues of sexual brokenness have received death threats, been ostracized, vilified or attacked in public. Psychologists or counselors who regard lesbian or homosexual behavior as morally wrong have been expelled from (secular) professional bodies or had their credentials revoked. So much for human rights and/or morality.
I'm not saying the church is above criticism: it isn't. But sometimes the source of the criticism is worse than the criticism itself. What does a cynical pagan know about the covenant of marriage? What gives him/her the right to criticise a system he/she will never be part of, whether it changes or not? Why should I listen to people outside the church pontificate on what the church should be like? I'm tired of our modern double standards:

• Senators and politicians talking about morality, but only when it applies to others; 
• Journalists who drool over the doings and screwings of business, music and movie stars, but who express outrage over the same behavior by political or religious leaders; 
• Gun advocates who glorify war (and shooting their neighbours) yet claim to be responsible citizens;
• Parents who complain about our declining society, yet allow their children to watch sex and violence on TV and in movies, and enjoy it themselves as "entertainment";
• Banks who pay massive bonuses to employees when they make outrageous profits, yet won't lend money to small businesses when they need to grow;
• Laws that punish prostitutes, but not their clients;
• A legal system that requires witnesses to take an oath, but allows lawyers to lie and twist the truth with impunity;

The list is endless. The consequences are obvious and everywhere to see.

Post Office Strike: Consumers Strike Back

I understand that workers demand a "living wage" and that many workers in South Africa are exploited. But it seems to me that the trades unions are being shortsighted when it comes to the Post Office. Snail mail is a declining service, and as soon as it becomes unreliable consumers and businesses look for alternatives.
In the case of snail mail, the answer is obvious: use email, or a fax. Most of my monthly invoices arrive by email, and this week I added another one. So I really don't care if the Post Office can't deliver letters any more: I seldom get any. The only stuff I pay for that arrives by post is Noseweek and National Geographic. And Noseweek is looking into the possibility of using a delivery method other than mail. After all, City Press is delivered every Sunday without relying on the Post Office. Why not use them?
I already have a dual subscription, so I can read the news online, or in print, and I usually check out the most interesting articles online before the print edition arrives. So my advice to the postal unions is this: if you want the Post Office to stay in business, don't disrupt the delivery of mail. There are plenty of alternatives, including courier services, for letters and packages to be delivered. Your workers have stolen plenty of packages from Amazon.com and elsewhere, that quite frankly I'll be quite happy to use a more reliable alternative, such as Postnet, if push comes to shove.
The problem is this: trade union leaders and organizers do not lose their jobs when workers get retrenched after a strike. Perhaps if they did, the pre-strike negotiations would be more about workers and less about scoring political points.

Update Sunday 24th March: Today's Sunday Times newspaper claims that the CEO of the Post Office was chosen by the boyfriend of the Minister of Communications: one of those "jobs for pals" posts that works so well in the real world. In the meantime we have not had a letter or magazine delivered for around 8 weeks already.
Update Thursday 4th April: Hooray! First letters delivered in 9 weeks. Only 3 letters mind you, but it's a start. I reckon that The Post Office should be asking Sanral for volunteers from all those empty eToll shops around Gauteng. Without the Postal Service they are never going to be able to get their eToll invoices out.
Update Friday 17th May: Just received 3 National Geographics and 2 Noseweeks (but not the current ones) and a letter from Discovery dated 27th February. So our postal delivery appears to be weekly, with a delivery time of around 2-3 months. Mmm ...

The Insanity of the Gun "Debate"

It seems to me that the American Constitution has bumped into the Law of Unintended Consequences when it comes to gun violence. It seems that school shootings are an American tradition, going back to the 1700's. According to the Wikipedia article,

Prior to 1989, there were only a handful of incidents in which two or more victims were killed by firearms at a school, including the 1966 University of Texas massacre, the 1974 Olean High School shooting, the 1976 California State University, Fullerton massacre, and the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting.

In the article "Gun violence in the United States" it states

In 2010 there were 358 murders involving rifles. Murders involving the use of handguns in the US that same year totaled 6,009, with another 1,939 murders with the firearm type unreported. There were 19,392 firearm-related suicide deaths, and 11,078 firearm-related homicide deaths in the United States.

It seems that Americans are more intent on killing themselves than their enemies are. Weird.
Of course, South Africa is riddled with firearms of both the licensed and unlicensed variety. The high-profile shooting involving Oscar Pistorius springs to mind. And most hijackings and burglaries are committed by armed criminals. Then there is taxi violence.
What I find so incomprehensible is the way American politicians "debate" the issue. The NRA comes up with non-sequiturs like "The only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Seriously?
My solution for the gun problem is much simpler: impose a gun tax of say $1200 per year per firearm. It could work on a sliding scale, based on the number of rounds that can be fired per minute. Since an AK-47 can fire 600 rounds per minute, while a Colt 45 has only 6 bullets in its chamber, this would make the tax on the AK-47 100 times higher, effectively making it too expensive for a private citizen to own.
The next step would be to impose a tax of $10 per bullet sold, which would make the cost of using a firearm more expensive, even it it was unlicensed. All of the money raised could be used to fund the emergency rooms at hospitals, where most gun injuries are treated.
If you haven't guessed by now, the aim of the exercise is to enable "sensible gun owners" to continue with their lunacy, but pay more for it. Illegal gun owners would face massive fines (and back-taxes) when caught with unlicensed weapons, and the general availability of guns and bullets would decline. It would also force gun owners to be more careful about not losing their weapons or leave them lying around where they could be stolen.
See also: "Darwin Award goes to all NRA "life" members"

The Politics of the Movie Industry

This movie exposes the lies and corruption that took place in the Swedish trial of the Pirate Bay founders. You can watch the full movie here, or purchase a copy at watch.tpbafk.tv. I bought a copy, because it takes money to make good documentaries. The greed and malice of the Hollywood Copyright lobby seems to know no bounds, and certainly has no morals or scruples. Just look at the propaganda they put out in the name of "entertainment".

An Open Letter to Nedbank

Dear Nedbank
This is just a quick note to thank you for sending me unsolicited snail mail. I'm glad it was only snail mail and not email, because otherwise you would have been violating the ECT Act as well as the other laws and ethics you just broke.
You see, it's not only unethical to buy names and addresses of random people and then run a credit check on them without their knowledge, it's bad business. However, Nedbank is also a member of the Direct Marketing Association, and as such has publicly agreed to abide by their code of conduct. Sending me such a letter, signed by Graeme Holmes, the Head of Consumer Cards, is thus a breach of their code of conduct, and tells me that you were really sloppy and didn't check my name against their "Do Not Contact List". Either that, or you just really don't care about my privacy.
Now credit card companies are notoriously bad about "leaking" names to direct marketers, but in South Africa that's a criminal offence. By sending me this letter you have identified yourselves as a "dodgy bank" (aren't they all?) who is incapable of keeping my contact details private, as you are required by law. Alternatively, you are happy to ignore the privacy of any future clients by buying my name from a dodgy marketer, with no morals and no scruples. I guess that makes you guys a perfect fit.
So since you have identified yourselves to me as a company who keeps company with criminals (or are criminals yourselves by violating the law), I have decided, as a public service, to identify your unethical behaviour to the public at large. I'm also going to warn them, courtesy of this article, that your credit card fees are, to put it bluntly, greedy and excessive. They are double what I am paying. Small wonder you are willing to go to the expense of sending me snail mail, and paying for my name and address. Shame on you!
And before your self-satisfied smug sense of outrage kicks in, I did personally warn your organisation that I do not take kindly to unsolicited marketing campaigns. The date: 9th January 2007. I guess you didn't get or read the memo. Ag, shame!
Yours sincerely
Donn Edwards

Update Monday 5pm: Nedbank's chief twit wants me to send my ID number to them via Twitter. Funny, I supplied this information many years ago, and it is also in the DMA's Do Not Contact list. They would have to have it when the bought the marketing list in order to comply with the DMA's Code of Conduct. Clearly they haven't complied with the code of conduct, which is why are now looking stupid with egg on their faces.
Update Tuesday 12: In reading through the Nedbank Code of Ethics I find no mention of the word "privacy", even though Nedbank ascribes to the DMA's Code of Conduct, but it does mention the word "confidentiality" several times. Clearly Nedbank doesn't think my contact details are confidential enough to worry about. I guess they aren't really serious about their Code of Ethics, and write it off as public relations double-speak.
Update Thursday 14: I finally heard from Graeme Holmes, after I guessed his email address (first name, plus first letter of surname, followed by Nedbank domain name) since I wasn't getting anywhere with the HelloPeter complaint drones. Graeme is convinced that I must have been an account holder with Nedbank at some point, because they don't buy lists of names. I corrected this false assumption, and await the results of an internal investigation. Yeah, right.
Update Wednesday 20 Feb: It's a welcome change to have to eat my own words. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a personal letter of explanation from Graeme Holmes today. They used the wrong database (an old one) and didn't check it correctly against the DMA's database. I was a signatory on an account for the Body Corporate where I live, which is why I appeared on the "old" database and not on the current one. So we were both right. Thanks for the extra effort, Graeme. You are a credit to your organisation. (Bad pun not intended)

FNB's Evil Banking System

I'm unhappy with my bank right now. Given that it's the end of January, this is hardly surprising. What makes it worse is that there are some people at FNB who are trying really hard to paper over the cracks, but underneath their system sucks. Like most banks, it is greedy, manipulative, and criminally irresponsible. So I'm singling out FNB because it is my bank, not because its the worst, or the best. It's just evil.
The "platinum" credit card springs to mind: it's plastic, not metal, but then marketing and lies are always good bedfellows. When I tried to "upgrade" my existing card to the "platinum" card they "approved in principle" a credit limit of 300% of my monthly salary. Yes folks, 3 times what I earn! Are they insane? I asked the FNB CEO.
He didn't deny it, and went on to say they think a monthly debt repayment amount should not be more that 30% of a person's salary. So, notwithstanding the amount I pay on my bond every month is already 20% of my salary before tax, they were happy to burden me with a massive debt every month amounting to 30% of my income. They call this "prudent"; I call it criminal.
The minimum monthly repayment on credit card debt is 10% of the amount owing, plus interest of 21%. Both of these are fixed by law. So the maths is then quite simple: if you repay 30% of your income and that represents 10% of your debt, it seems reasonable to lend you 300% of your salary. What the evil little bankers don't explain is that at 21% interest, your debt doubles every 20 months, so it's going to take a lot longer than 10 months to pay off the debt you incurred in the first place.
They also seem to think they are doing you a favour by lending you so much money. Actually, they are setting you up for a nice little interest repayment and profit. Anyone stupid enough to run up their credit card debt (notice how it's called "credit", not "debt", because "credit" sounds less evil) to 300% their salary is going to spend years getting out of that mess, if they ever do. That's another reason why the bank is criminally irresponsible.
The next "gotcha" is for people like me who keep their credit card limit low. As it turned out, the R800 limit was a little too low, and I inadvertently exceeded it. Twice. At R220 per time. What galls me even more is that if you make a payment on a Sunday, they only process it on the Monday. But they are happy to process debits on a Sunday, and charge the overlimit fee of R220, without even blinking, knowing full well that your payment will only be processed on the Monday.
When I questioned this practice, they tried to lie to me and tell me they processed the debits on the Saturday, when I have both email and SMS proof that it was done on Sunday. (See update below)
The next monumental "gotcha" happened when they "upgraded" my card. I arranged for a more practical limit of R1500, and the R61.25 card fee would be paid monthly, not annually. So they went ahead and changed the card number, issued the new cards to my wife and myself, and promptly charged me the R735** annual card fee. If I had maintained my previous card limit they would have also hit me with a third R220 overlimit fee. Needless to say I was not impressed.
The card division could easily explain to me that this was because, in spite of the fact that they opened the new account this month, my longstanding credit card arrangement still fell under the Usuary Act, not the National Credit Act, and as such they weren't allowed to charge me monthly. (Really??) This led to the most glaringly obvious question: "Why didn't you tell me in advance that the monthly option was not available?" They, of course, shrugged their shoulders and denied any responsibility. (Criminally irresponsible?)
"It's the system" was their only defence. "Well, then, fix the system!" I demanded. Silence.
Silence. Exactly. That's the evil part. The system will extract as many fees as possible in the process, and no, they will not entertain the possibility of improving it, unless that "improvement" means they can extract further bank fees or interest from the public. They are not prepared to modify their system to warn their customers in advance. Why should they? The worst the customer will do is rant and rave at a call centre operator, which is what they are paid for.
The easy part was telling me the reason for the R735** deduction. It has taken longer to fix the problem. This involved creating another new credit card account and going through another credit approval process, this time under the National Credit Act. For this privilege they are now going to charge me a further R135*, but of course they didn't tell me about that when they explained how to fix the other problem. Of course not, because I would have told them where to shove it. Why the need for a card fee at all? Aren't the greedy bastards satisfied with the 5% or more they get from merchants on each transaction, or from the 21% interest they charge when payments are late? Clearly not. And it's not like they have to find the money to lend to their credit card clients: they can "invent" most of it. But that's another story.
One further screw up: when they created the new card account they ignored the credit limit amount of R1500 that I confirmed on the phone, and changed it to R1350 instead. Why? Because they could. So it took another phone call to fix it, plus another phone call to get the new card account to show on my online banking profile. Clearly their system could do with a few improvements. For consumers.


Now you know why I believe that the collective noun for bankers is very appropriate: it's a "wunch" of bankers.
Update Tue 29 January: FNB Card Division has agreed to reverse the second overlimit fee. They claim the deduction was made on the Saturday, but the SMS notification messages were only sent on the Sunday, and (conveniently) blame this on "external service providers", while making no mention of the failure of their own internal email system. My guess is that the deductions are not synchronized with the notifications, and the notifications were only sent the following day.
Basically, the InContact "security" system is not reliable, and therefore offers no "security" whatsoever. It's a good marketing gimmick when it works, and a major pain when it doesn't. Basically, whenever you buy anything and don't receive the SMS immediately, you need to keep the slip separately, and check it off when the transaction eventually appears. In the meantime, the "available credit" figure they provide is misleading and wrong.
**Had I borrowed R735 as a short term loan from FNB, the repayment amount (within 1 month) would have been R824.90, which includes an "initiation" fee of R74.90. Since FNB took the money from me, they charged me an initiation fee of R135*, and didn't even pay interest when they reversed the transaction. I'm sure they don't think anything is wrong either.
Update Wed 30 January: *Card Division has quietly reversed the R135 card initiation fee. I had requested this because I didn't see why I should pay it when it wasn't my fault that I had to apply for a new card in the first place.
So now all the objectionable charges have been manually reversed, but there is no indication from anyone at FNB that the systems that caused them have been fixed. One can only hope, although I'm not holding my breath.