Brad Ideas - Free Speech - Comments

AMEX SCREW YOUR ONE TIME FEE

Anonymous — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:00:34 -0700

Take this then ...

Upgrade an AMEX from GOLDEN to PLATINUM, the software will automatically cancel the Golden one if you have no debts and that's all. They didn't re-compensate back the money you already paid at the beginning of the year. In my case I paid in July 2007 130 for Golden Amex ( one year fee), in Jan 2008 I applied for Platinum based on the forms they send me , I never used Golden but only today May 3-rd 2008 and to discover that the payment was refused , I payed by debit card and when I get back home I called them and find out what is wrong with the card. I ask them WHEN and WHO canceled the card .. THEY DID , WHEN they canceled ? .. IN JANUARY, it means that I paid 130 for a year they own back me the amount between Jan and Jul ( around 65$ half of the year). In the phone conversation I get the money with no resistance from AMEX which proves that they recognize their mistake, but my next question was why your software didn't do that automatically ... Hm it is easy because foolish my loss and them win free money. .... ok but how much per year , If a million switch a year they win in average 65 millions, ( I consider that some might do that at the begging of the period some at the end so it is and average).

I do not think this is fair either. .... and the authorities should force them to refund the money back.

Way To go AmEx.....cOntinue

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:26:26 -0700

Way To go AmEx.....cOntinue destroying the US middle class Why Don't You OutSource 99.9 % Of Jobs Including ken'S!!!!!!!!

Litigation

TJ — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:48:15 -0700

Hmmm, I see the joke and the Cease and desist letter are still posted. Are you taunting AMex and their lawyers?

GOOD!!!!!

You'd have liked this overdubbing that I saw on UA late 2003

Suresh Ramasubramanian — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:31:06 -0800

The only online reference I can find is http://the-econoclast.blogspot.com/2005_02_20_archive.html

A 7 letter word for a body orifice gets overdubbed to the name of an unpopular attorney general

Michael Moore's film was

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:59:06 -0800

Michael Moore's film was nothing more than a lot of lies and videos which had been manipulated. His lies have been proven over and over.

The Corporate Heretic

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 05:24:45 -0800

I suggest you read "160 Degrees of Deviation: The Case for the Corporate Cynic" by Jerome Alexander. These are the musings of a real corporate heretic. He must be hated by the arrogant, egotistical, jerks who manage companies.

What about e-mail?

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:58:15 -0700

And the USA Governement is doing nothing against the social network called "electronic mail"--while here, we have been taking action, as it is a dangerous peer-to-peer sharing technology that allows pirates to exchange artists' works, like poems, novels and quotes, without declaring it, and circumventing the righful owners of the hardly earned copyrights.

Is that true?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:51:49 -0700

Hello to everyone, I'm from Italy and I'm not well informed about American politics. A few days ago I saw a movie and when I finished viewing it I was still with my mouth open. I could scarcely believe the things that were said in this movie. This documentary was by Michael Moore, it was Fahrenheit 9/11. Is it possible all what he said in his movie? Is that true that thousands of black people were denied the right to vote their president? Is it possible that Bush was playing golf after the 9/11? Did he really share such a huge part of the American petrol economy with the Bin Ladens? I have been two times in America, and I thought and still think it to be a good country with good people; how come such people elected a person that is portrayed this way(at least by Michael Moore)?

american express

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:15:12 -0700

I'm waiting for american express to threaten me with legal action. Will be good fun to go into court and show the world how they held my $20,000.00 for 5 months while all the time denying that they did ot have it because my check dishonored, hell it was a bank draft; on top of all that they tried to get me to think that I was partly to blame, no way I'll accept that way that they think, because they can't think, they haven't got the brain power to even raise a sweat if it comes to that. Then they lied to ,me, very silly of them to do it in writig, so have them by the shoryt hairs if they want to try to take me on. They will lose, but I will have good fun making them lose. Have already posted them on an austtralian website named not good enough, they have fun with the likes of amex when they do things like that they did to me. I want compensation from them for the added expenses that I had to incur because of them, plus the fact that I could not use my cards on recent overseas travel, couple that with the discrediation of my good name, and they will have to compensate me; they just want to make a token gesture, but I want what they cost me and a good will gesture on top. anybody wans to know what it's all about, mail me on rob48@hushmail.com, and I will tell you and name names

i know this is a late

Andres — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:41:10 -0700

i know this is a late response but i just have to say HA! Since when has this president shown ANY credibility for you to actually thik he did NOT say it? his ACTIONS speak for themselves, he didnt have to say its just a god damn piece of paper, we KNOW he thinks it, as well as other top people in this administration. wake up!! Mr. night walker, you are giving him actual credibiliy and respect when this president has shown none to the office of the president nor to the american people, nor the constitution of the united states.

The role of commander-in-chief is expressly explained in the Constitution as referring to the president's position as top officer of the nation's military but that has no relevance with the respect to the rest of society....hes not commander-in-chief of the Congress, or of the administration, or of you or me, hes just president. the numerous unconstitutional provisions in the patriot act is self evident.

Germany, with a constituion William Shirer called "the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the twentieth century had ever seen" morphed into the Third Reich, step by step as a crazy man with unthinking admirers convinced them that external and internal enemies threatened them...hitler insisted that as "a defensive measure for the Protection of the People and the State," the seven sections of the Weimar constitution guaranteeing individual and civil liberties had to be suspended....HELLO!! WAKE UP

american express joke

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:24:32 -0700

I cannot believe that they would send you a letter on such a stupid topic! I read both the joke and american express letter. Doesn't american express have any real jobs for their lawyers?! To waste time on something this ignorant and to threaten people just because they can.. I closed my account with them today after reading this! I don't want to be associated with a corporation that is so out of touch. It is funny how american express financial has no drug testing and knowing allows certain people level 7 and 8's (in Minneapolis)to handle customer calls yet make a big deal out of a joke on your site!

I agree

brad — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:35:47 -0800

This is a multifacited issue, and there is, as Google says, going to be good coming from this.

One thing I wonder about, and honestly can't answer. From a purely business standpoint, which is better? When China becomes free -- and it will, will the goodwill given to those who fought the fight to make it free make up for the early market share gained by collaborators?

And what about "fighting collaborators" as your post suggests is the real role of Google?

I would like to hope so. That it is better to be Rosa Parks than the bus driver who was just following the law. To be Edward R. Murrow and CBS instead of Senator McCarthy and the people who didn't fight him.

Sometimes it's true. Sometimes (such as companies that collaborated with the Nazis or even used slave labour) it seems to not be. In many ways I think it may even be sometimes worth it to punish the later generation people at Ford, BMW, Bayer, Diamler and others, even though the modern people didn't do anything, they're just living off the benefits of it. On the other hand I'm usually wary of any post-generational punishments, much better to figure things out in the same generation. We would do it to send the message that "You will never gain more than temporary advantage from doing this. In the end, you will regret it."

Though even this is not enough. Athletes use steroids even though it seems in the end they are often caught and shamed. The temporary success seems enough.

I would like it to be clear that fighting is the right choice from a business sense, because then we would not have to worry about our business choices and our ethical ones putting us at odds.

Your post is excellent, as

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:31:56 -0800

Your post is excellent, as always, but there are a number of arguments that are orthogonal to what you wrote.

1. It is illegal to discuss The Great Firewall of China within China. However, as a result of the press that Google is getting, people in China are now talking about it; communist party members are writing memos and position papers saying that the wall should be removed. None of that would have happened if Google didn't do what they did.

2. Before all this, most people outside of China didn't know The Great Firewall of China existed. Now everyone in the world knows. China can't speak internationally without someone bringing it up. China can't interact with other countries without the issue being on the table, and it shames them.

Why didn't that happen when Yahoo entered China?

3. Google puts a bit of text saying that the results would have been better if your government wasn't censoring you. This message only appears if search results were dropped. No other search engine does this. I'd rather have children in China growing up questioning "why do I get that message when I search for 'democracy' or when looking for vacation/tourist packages near 'Tiananmen Square'?" will have more political impact than we can imagine. (Just like bringing Dallas and MTV to Russia accelerated the fall of the USSR.)

4. Google should get points for the fact that they are censoring exactly the search results as requested, nothing more. Other search engines are dropping a lot more "just in case" (they are being sloppy and careless.) They aren't labeling the results as lower quality due to censorship. Those search engines should be publicly berated at least as much as Google, if not more.

Absolute terms?

brad — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:17:12 -0800

Actually, what I said was it was a complex issue, with many factors I cited (including some you name) but that the my final analysis says Google took the wrong course. Many Google employees believe this as well. Even Google management has said that they see believe that positions like mine are valid to hold.

So I'm not sure why my saying that their course is, on balance of a number of factors I cited wrong, is some sort of absolute assertion. How should I rewrite it?

The question of "If we don't do it, somebody else will, and more, they will do it worse" is also a complex one. When this is argued the argument always seems fairly rational. Yet when viewed from a distance, it usually ends up wrong. So much evil in the world gets done for that locally rational reason. So if this argument is ever right, how can you identify the times when it is?

I think you will find that many, many Chinese (almost surely greater in absolute numbers than the entire population of South Africa) want action against the government. Certainly all members of Falun Gong, huge numbers of Tibetans, etc. All those who marched in Tien an Men whose pictures Google won't show. And how many who saw the pictures of the tanks and are scared to stand up -- I don't know.

What about intent and consequences?

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 14:54:50 -0800

While I'm not 100% certain how I feel about Google doing business in China, I believe it is unreasonable to assert in absolute terms that its choice is 'wrong'.

I think we all know by now that any company providing information in China must abide by the country's censorship rules. And the majority of us seem to believe that those rules are, in fact, 'wrong' (myself included). But your essay dismisses far too easily the fact that the net total information available to Chinese users is greater than before. It also completely ignores the fact that Google's is hardly the only viable search engine there -- Yahoo has been there for some time, and is complicit in much greater abuses than Google has been accused of; Alibaba and Baidu are present as well; and if Microsoft were to enter that market, I doubt anyone would raise an eyebrow. Google's absence would hardly be a great burden on the ruling party.

Therefore, Google can either stay out of the market and cede it to companies that clearly have _no concern whatsoever_ about implementing the Chinese government's censhorship and surveillance regime -- or it can enter the market and do what it can to work towards a more open system. It is already the only big search engine (to my knowledge) to warn users that its results are being censored. The company also explicitly chose not to make available those services which would expose its users' personal data to government scrutiny. Note that Google has a similar policy with regards to the censhorship laws in the US (DMCA requests) and Europe (Nazi Memorabilia, among other things). It is clearly in that company's interest to keep information flowing freely wherever possible.

So as I see it, you can either take an absolute stand that amounts to pissing in the wind, or you can make the hard (and apparently unpopular) decision to do business in China -- accepting that it will take a long time and a lot of work to make things better.

On a side note -- there is a very crucial difference between the problem of apartheid in South Africa and the current situation in China: many South Africans explicitly called for a boycott of their own country; Chinese citizens, on the other hand, have tended to be up in arms whenever Google is unavailable. If there was a clearer mandate from the Chinese citizenry requesting that information companies boycott their country, it would be a different story altogether.