Eric the Red

In an act of EXTREME stupidity, Verizon Wireless has decided that its cell phones should sound an alarm if the user dials 911. What Verizon has utterly failed to understand here is that when people dial 911, their lives are in danger because they have walked into a break-in in their home, or someone breaks in while they are at home and they are forced to hide or die.

So why does Verizon think its appropriate to alert attackers to the locations of their victims? Will Verizon be sorry if this utterly idiotic “feature” results in someone being beaten, kidnapped or killed, or will they just say “whoops, my bad”? I mean, how the hell can they call something this stupid a feature?? And apparently Sprint is susceptible as well.

The article I cite here quotes a Verizon spokesman who claims:

The tone our customer experienced is our interpretation of Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act calling for a provider of telecommunications service to offer service that is accessible and usable by individuals with disabilities. The tone, indicating that 911 has been dialed, is one of several features designed to make wireless service is accessible and easy to use, especially for those with disabilities. Other features include a voice command key where customers can use their voice to dial by name or number; a voice echo feature so that a person who can’t see can hear the number or letter if sending a text; read back text messages and speech output of signal strength, battery strength, missed calls, voicemail, roaming, time and date.

I assume this spokesman is talking about the blind. So lets take a look at this statistically.

Compare this to 1.1 million people in the United States who are legally blind. So domestic violence affects three times as many people as blindness. This means 3 times as many people are likely to be in a situation where contacting law enforcement while remaining hidden could save their lives.

Maybe the tone is so you have something soothing or upbeat to listen to while your killer hacks you to death. Ugh…..

Since today is Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a bit about eating [CNN]. Enjoy!

As the BratBoy Ship continues to burn, a question remains: who is Rick Altmann?

I think this scam continues to go forward. Think about it folks….why do you get defrauded – and allow others to be defrauded – and not involve law enforcement (think of the amounts of money lost here) – unless you are equally guilty of fraud? Better to try sweeping the mess under the rug…they better hope the rug is big enough!

Step 1: Generate some sex appeal
Step 2: Build a fan base that buys your vaporware
Step 3: Profit

Thats what happened with “Ethan” Reynolds aka the Brat Boy. What shocks me isn’t that they used skin shots to sell (everyone does), its the massive defense launched by their fan base.

Here is a blog that almost became one of the “best” gay blogs of 2005.

Sure Ethan, you were used….as were Ben and Blair….but as the saying goes: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on YOU Ethan/Gerald/JR/whatever your name is! Enjoy the house your fraud and fans built!

If I were a fan, I would screw dealing with paypal, screw dealing with the banks and deal with the FBI or use this internet crime link or this mail fraud link because I think this scam is still a scam that someone is trying to run from. I did! This one is probably more removed from the scam than the rest…i suppose only time will tell.