defacto7
defacto7's JournalPhishing scam against retired union members
In today's snail mail, I received the most disgusting scam against retired persons I have seen. So professional, so blatant, it is something to laugh at. But I'm not laughing because I know there are plenty of over 60'ers that very well could fall for this crap.
So, here's this mail from a professional sounding financial institution under the subheading of Pension Administration at a PO box in Delaware. They write that they are aware that I have a pension annuity that I haven't applied for from my previous union affiliation. Actually, they are correct that I have a such a pension but let me continue. They ask that for me to know if I qualify for this pension, I must fill out an enclosed form which requires all of my financial and personal information that includes my wife's information and, if divorced, a copy of my divorce decree. If I don't send these items, I will not qualify for this pension.
First of all, this company has nothing whatsoever to do with my old union or the financial institution that handles it. If I wish to apply for it I can easily go online and apply. Secondly, the only information they supply is "that they are aware" that it exists. That info can be retrieved through the union or handling institution by legal or illegal means relatively easily. It could also easily have come from the phishing Elon Musk and his cohorts did in government records. But all they have is my name, address and the name of the union, nothing else. They want ME to supply all the rest of the details on this flimsy piece of paper and return it with the decree, if it exists, in a self addressed envelope. It's just enough detail to steal my identity, steal the annuity and just about everything else including bank accounts, my wife's accounts and possibly my X's accounts. There's enough background info on a divorce decree to erase me from existence and setup a new me through a Delaware PO Box that connects to the Cayman Islands or such.
I suspect the probability of fraud is 98%. If it's not fraud it's inappropriate and utterly juvenile business practice that should not be tolerated. AI, anyone?
Remember .. NEVER give out personal info that you yourself didn't apply for in person with a proven representative.
Are you immune to Measles?
The basic CDC rule is that if you were born before 1957 you are considered immune from measles. I was born a few months before 1957 so just for the record I took a titer blood test. It said I had NO immunity to measles whatsoever. My reading for mumps was around 250, Rubella 250 and that's considered high immunity. My reading for Measles was less than 5, the lowest rating and therefore zero immunity. I got the measles vaccine on the spot.
Don't take for granted that you are immune just because of your age. Get a titer test to make sure. Measles in people of age is no picnic and can be serious.
The Jolt
I was thinking today about how the new administration in all its forms and contortions has affected, even jolted everyone in this country in one way or another. Centibillionaires have lost billions, Billionaires have lost millions, multimillionaires their hundreds-of-thousands, the list continues. Families have been torn apart, some families have disappeared altogether, people have died in custody and many are lost to the aethers it seems. The stability of the nation, even the world is under attack as stalwart fixtures of unity are shattered in a moment of ego. Our sanity is being shaken while life long trust in the securities our nation provides are fired upon by mindless human weapons of mass deception. Comfort, well-being and the pursuit of happiness are quickly becoming the gated community of the few as liberty is dismembered and re-categorized into multiple non-existent definitions, and adjectives must validate a variable concept of freedom. In our new paradigm friends become enemies, enemies become bed-mates, war becomes a beachfront casino, people become compost, blood becomes currency. The future of life itself may be defined by the following: productive - therefore valuable, insignificant - but possibly utilitarian, and nugatory - therefore expendable like a child with cancer who threatens US border security and dogs of valor that can go hungry to save the US from catastrophic economic calamity.
I like to walk to the market instead of driving. Actually I mostly walk everywhere these days. There's this guy I pass almost every time who sits at the corner with his dog Dammit and I make a habit of stopping, sometimes sitting to chat. He's, I'd say, about 70, he's homeless and his name is Vince. Toothless, he always smiles and laughs boldfaced when I see him and tells Dammit to greet me, her tail lashing like her slobbering tongue. Yesterday while we sat and watched shoppers drive passed, I asked him, "How's the world treating you, Vince?" He replied, "Great, just fine, no worries." We don't talk politics. I figure he needs more support than argument so I never go there. I don't know what his politics is, never asked. Anyway, I just blurted out, "So you're not feeling overwhelmed or anything?"
"Overwhelmed by what?"
"All the changes going on."
"Things are always changing."
"And you just keep doing what you do?"
"Yep. I don't have nothing, I don't want nothing."
"Why?"
"If you don't have nothing, you got nothing to lose. I've got my dog, though. I worry about losing her. But people are kind. Sometimes we have a place to go sometimes we don't. I just like to laugh, she likes to dance and we're okay."
I remember my father telling me a similar story. When I was a boy I asked him if the depression was hard for him. He said, "It was hard for many. But me, not in the least. I didn't lose anything because I had nothing to lose." This seems to be a way of living that just isn't in the mind of the modern capitalist culture, to live without stuff. I've thought about it over the years, what my dad said, and now I hear it again from Vince 60 years later. I was lucky to have had a good career, gathered a few things and a little money. But I've tried to live my life like none of that matters, like no stuff I own has any actual value to me. I think people have value. Friends have value. My family has value. Children with cancer have value. Dogs of valor and all animals have value. Our country has value. Countries who have always stood beside us have value. Humans under siege have value. Liberty and freedom have value. Nature has value. Vince and Dammit and all the others like them have value. Losing these would be tragic.
But the stuff? The stuff that obsesses the minds of oppressors and is the fantasy of the ignorant? I don't lose sleep over it.
D7
I'd put this in the Philosophy Forum if it was still a thing. But I guess I'll have to drop it here.
AQ monitoring
Considering the political war against science and the cuts and imminent discontinuation of air quality monitoring, I can't think of a better way that I can personally fight back than to build my own air quality monitoring equipment and make information available from my location. I live in a city that has some of the worst air quality in North America and sometimes rivals the worst on the planet. I'm in Salt Lake City, UT. We have worse CO quality on average than Los Angeles. I can't see that losing AQ information here due to the policies of anti-fact propagandists can be anything but detrimental to the cause of ecology and health. I have access to the perfect conditions and staging area. It's time to take the bull by the horns and do what I can in my little corner of the earth.
Equipment that I can see online range from $100 to $6,000. Most all gather the usual data e.g. particulate matter, CO2, NO2, SO2, O3, plus the usual weather data, but one of the most important sensors seems difficult to find, one for carbon monoxide. CO is a real problem here. There are really cheep sensors for indoors and there are CO sensor modules I can buy to build it myself. I have ample electronics experience and I'd be fine with designing my own but I'm not sure whether those modules detect CO at the levels one would be interested in for data collection outdoors rather than simply tripping a switch when indoor levels reach a critical state. That's something I'll have to dig for.
I'd really like to hear some input on this. If you have ideas, experience or have done such a thing yourself, please share anything you want to offer. Have you heard of good, better, best equipment, bad equipment or CO monitoring? Anything that comes to mind would be highly appreciated.
I think our billionaire overlords and their political serfs know what they're doing.
They know the earth cannot sustain the human masses that feed on it now or in the future; the breaking point is imminent.
They know humans cannot control greed.
They know humans are gullible.
They know that human caused climate change is unstoppable and its breaking point is imminent because existing industry and ecology are incompatible.
They know that pathogenic environs are ripe for expansion.
They know the industrial complexes of the world are beyond control at all levels.
They know that nations are made and ultimately exist due to war, therefore, there is no will or desire to stop war or dissolve nation states, only the imperative to orchestrate them.
They know humans live in packs; the clan must survive, conquer and destroy all competition, all foreign entities.
They know that empathy, compassion and unity are relatively new to the human species and if unchecked and unfocused, become disruptive to control mechanisms.
They know that the masses are pacified by fantasy, demigods and false hope combined with pain.
Whether their schemes are by design, by circumstance or blind stupidity, they know they must survive, and to them the ends justify the means.
I have no compunction about walking into a destiny I can't change, but I won't go there without a fight or without screaming foul until I can no longer scream.
D7
After Kamala wins and the fraud-claim fires die down ...
… the fight for securing America will not end there. I'm sure the extreme right will be back. It would be easy and even understandable for us to settle into a victory lull. Sure, take five, have a cigar, party a bit. But soon, very soon, we will have to begin the march to prove that the political swings throughout history are wrong in our case and that democracy will survive. My personal opinion is that the path to that end comes down to two issues: increased education and the eradication of misinformation.
Philosophically, we could block political influences coming from the outside, but in a free thinking, free speaking democracy we can't just stop people from expressing ideas no matter how repugnant we think it is. In contrast, the voices that speak truth and reason must speak, yell, scream the loudest to shame and drown out false concepts that promote fascism and autocracy.
Just less than half of America has been duped. They've fallen into RW thinking completely or are twisted at the fringe just enough to take the bate and follow singular causes that only serve their present selfish interests, or they drop out. These people have with no regard for the future or the interests of the rest of us and thus, democracy itself.
Coming back to DU after, I don't know, 3 or 4 years, I swore I would stay away from bloviating. But, well, I guess I can't completely change my spots. This is the whole of my reductionist view of it all, so maybe I'll slip back into my corner now. I'd be happy to read your opinion. This is the best group of people on the web for information that covers the facts, and discussions that tweak opinion. How can anyone stay away. Once here, you can never really leave.
Happy election day!!!
D7
I went for a coffee at Barnes & Noble yesterday,
sat at a table and 2 young women sat at the table next to me. After a couple minutes I casually asked one who she was voting for. She said, "I dunno". I asked her "are you going to vote?" and she answered, "I dunno". The other one just looked puzzled so I asked her would you vote for Trump? She said, "I don't care". They both looked like 19-20 years old.
It's just a stupid anecdote, and doesn't mean anything.
Then I thought.... Eloi
Good morning blues
I get up very early, around 5:30 more or less, and step out on my porch to see how the sky had progressed since the previous morning. Sirius blazes just off the lower eastern corner of Orion before dawn right now. I got in my car and drove over to Village Inn like I usually do on Sunday. I like this ritual breakfast where there are very few people and no elevator music crunching noise into an otherwise simple atmosphere. What few people are there graciously allow me to evesdrop on their waking conversations. Sitting in a booth by an eastern window, dripping a little Tabasco on my eggs, I see the sky transform from night darkness through a spectrum of blues contrasted behind the bright orange of the restaurant sign until the sun breaks over the mountains.
If I were in Manhattan I would follow a similar routine walking to the neighborhood Greek diner feeling the movement and rumble of delivery trucks, the squeaking brakes, the rush of air from the downtown #4 rising through the sidewalk grating. The conversations are loud and fast offering a bonus of personal information to the inquisitive. Red Tabasco drips onto yellow egg yolks as I'd watch the sky transform from night darkness through a spectrum of blues contrasted behind 220 57th Ave until the sun breaks over the city skyline.
We live in a varried and beautiful world that is so much greater than the poisonous political actors we are surrounded with day in and day out. Those who shall remain nameless do not own us or the sky or the blue behind the backdrop of our morning interactions and sounds. I feel a sense of peace knowing that I have moments that are free of the ugly mirage and instead are filled with real life, beauty and the simplicity of just being.
Here's wishing all you DUers your own moments of freedom each and every day.
D7
I want to make informed decisions. Who's going to do the informing?
After reading an op that undermines my candidate my first reaction is a strong one. I'm disappointed and my knee-jerk reaction is to sink the ship. On the other hand there are some good rebuttals. But the good lesson for me is to think through the manipulations in the last elections.
The bots and deceivers were powerful in the time leading to those elections, this we all know; a lot of people were duped. It would be irresponsible on my part to dump any candidate on this or even a few negative tweets or bites just as much as it would be irresponsible for me to disregard them because their messages don't meet my standards for a candidate.
If you think the descievers were rampant and somewhat successful last time around I have no doubt the perpetrators have worked hard to improve since then.
I'm holding all info and judgements until I see and hear the real thing in action at the debates and in person. I'm not letting any tweets or hearsay dictate my position but I will compare notes and make my conclusions based on experience, not strictly on what I'm fed by the media or anonymous promotion.
That's how I see it.
D7
On Lying
My complete bafflement over the persistant and grandiose disinformation disorder permeating the country right now got me to do a little research on the psychology, philosophy, ethics and neural correlates of lying. It's was rather enlightening and in a way relieving to find so much material online characterizing the phenomenon of conservative political lying and the science behind such human behavour. Let me say this... We are not alone at DU in recognizing the madness. There are so many studies and articles that define and clarify the asininity of right wing lie pathology that I'm just going to leave you with three fascinating links on the subject.
I'll start with: Why We Lie: The Science Behind Our Deceptive Ways Deceptive Ways
This is a great general read from National Geographic that covers a wide view of why we all lie and why some are compelled to believe lies more than others... and much more.
Second: BBC Ethics Guide - Lying
This is a very nice compilation of ethical studies covering these topics:
Lying and truth-telling
Lying and ethical theory
Philosophers on lying
Lying under serious threat
Other types of lying
Lying and medical ethics
Some interesting philosophical points of view include St. Augustine and his graduated list of lies ranging from the pardonable lie to unpardonable mortal lie. I found it thought provoking that his number one most damnable lie was "lies told in teaching religion" Hmmmm! Another was Thomas Aquinas where he states that "Officious or helpful lies are pardonable". I guess that would make them purposeful if you needed to promote a "cause". It also covers Consequentialism and Deontologists.
Lastly: Neural correlates of deception: lying about past events and personal beliefs (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov PMC) about past events and personal beliefs (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov PMC)
This is a more "brain science" approach to lying. I came across this in the pursuit of philosophy and ethics but it's very interesting science.
I hope this stuff is useful; it's a whole lot more interesting than my writing so don't equate my blather with these well written articles. They do give insight into why it's such a shit storm out there.
D7
Profile Information
Name: Defacto7Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Portland, OR
Home country: not sure anymore
Current location: depends on which proxy I'm using
Member since: Wed Aug 1, 2012, 12:44 AM
Number of posts: 14,157