“Back off and let men marry men, women marry women, and totally legalize abortion. In three generations, there will be no Democrats!!!”

First, whether or not I believe in outsourcing is irrelevant, because it is the right of any private businessman or company to follow the marketplace in pursuit of cheaper labor, less expensive materials or products that can make him or them more competitive.

That said, one would think that these firms could be just a bit more discerning when it comes to outsourcing technical support.

Most tech support for computer users comes out of Bangalore, though some firms, such as Dell and DirecWay, offer U.S. based tech support for corporate or other business accounts. Of course, it’s more expensive — that is, you pay for the luxury of speaking to a fellow American, and recent experience has taught me that it’s worth the money.

I had DirecWay come out on Friday and install a satellite dish for broadband access, and set up the modem. Signal strength was good and things seemed to be working when the two installers left, but shortly thereafter problems began, worse than those I’ve blogged about at some hotels I’ve stayed at.

I dealt with at least five different Bangalorians in trying to solve my access problem, all in vain.

See, I knew exactly what the problem was, I just didn’t know how to fix it. I attempted to explain it to each of them, and there was always the same result: I got myself walked through menus from one end of the universe to the other and back, keyed in scores of numbers and each time, in the end, the person I was talking to assured me my problem was solved, thanked me for calling in a way that sounded like my call was the high point of his very existence, hung up and went back to his bowl of curry.

And my problem remained.

Calling for about the sixth time, I was told by a woman that since I have a business account, I have “special” U.S. based tech support.

Yay!

I was connected with a fellow gringo in south Florida, where DirecWay keeps ‘em, had my problem solved and was off the phone in about ten minutes, as opposed to the fruitless half hour to an hour sessions with the Bangalorians.

What’s happening is plain to see: In order to maximize the savings they get from outsourcing, they go for the least qualified, “I need a job, any one will do” people they can find, the only prerequisite apparently being that they can speak somebody’s version of “passable English” — then they give them problem solving guides to a limited number of “most common problems”.

So you call up Tech Support and some guy with an Indian accent and an American nic greets you. The problem you need solved isn’t included among his computerized flash cards. Even if it was, it might not matter because he has no idea what you’re talking about, anyway.

He doesn’t tell you this, of course, instead he simply ignores what little he understands of what you’re telling him and steers you through a bunch of menus that are totally irrelevant to your problem, but fine for the problems of others that appear on one of the flash cards.

He wastes a whole bunch of your valuable time and solves nothing.

Inflicting such crappy customer service on consumers is not a marketing technique I’ve ever heard of, and is surely not any way to command a loyal customer base.

Maybe these companies need to try getting less Bangalore for the buck.

Two reasons my posting has been somewhat sporadic the last few days is that I’ve just bought a house and have been addressing a barrage of moving and logistics issues, and the loss of posts when trying to publish via the less-than-adequate access provider outsourced by the hotel I’ve been staying in for the last month while finding, buying and equipping the house.

There’s a long way to go before all my plans for making it a home reach fruition and today is going to be a busy one as well, but the satellite broadband is up and I’m moving in today, so by tonight or tomorrow I should be back to posting.

In the meantime, I will leave you with an enlightened and encouraging analysis of the year ahead for Iraq by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad.

Identity theft and credit card fraud are criminal issues today that need to be addressed as a priority not only by the very firms that allow these crimes to be perpetrated upon their customers, but by the gubmint — we’re not talking micromanagement here, we’re talking protecting the public.

Auto mechanic and father of three Joe Shmoe of Kalamazoo, Michigan shouldn’t have to worry that swiping his bank card at an ATM for forty bucks’ worth of spending money might provide some sleazeball with enough data to clean out his checking account. He also shouldn’t have to fear that the sweet young thing at the local Tasty Freeze may be swiping his card through her own device to steal his financial data.

But it happens.

The reason that the Fed hasn’t addressed this issue is that they are tied up with such Democrat issues as the Bush use of the NSA to protect our country against future terrorist attacks and the BS racist recriminations attached to Hurricane Katrina, pure Democrat political bullshit interfering with issues of legitimate concern.

Once a hot-button item, data and identity theft protection has stalled in Congress, a research analyst said Thursday, pushed aside by bigger political fish, ranging from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina to domestic spying and Supreme Court nominees.

Despite a year’s worth of highly publicized security breaches and a lot of talk in Congress this summer on ways to protect consumers, there’s been too little done to protect U.S. consumers’ data, said Gartner research director Avivah Litan.

“It’s business as usual,” she said, citing two recent breaches — one involving a lost backup tape with data on two million mortgage holders, another related to credit card fraud at gas pumps — as evidence. “Not enough has changed. Data protection has moved up the priority list, but not nearly enough.”

Meanwhile, Americans are being ripped off in significant numbers, for all their savings.

Chalk one up for the left, their strategies of obstruction are paying off, while they tie Congress up with “racist” hurricanes and their opposition to our having liberated the people of Iraq, identity theft lies in the “unattended” category.

In an effort to increase the already accellerating violence between Iraqi insurgents and the terrorists from outside Iraq who are fighting the new government, Iraqi and coalition forces, U.S. officials over there are engaging in dialogue with Iraqi guerilla leaders.

U.S. officials have been talking with local Iraqi insurgent leaders to exploit a rift between homegrown insurgents and radical groups such as Al Qaeda, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Citing a Western diplomat, an Iraqi political leader and an Iraqi insurgent leader, the Times said that the talks were also aimed at drawing the local leaders into the political process.

According to interviews with insurgents and both U.S. and Iraqi officials, clashes between Iraqi groups and al Qaeda have broken out in several cities across the Sunni Triangle and they appear to have intensified in recent months, the Times said.

It seems like al-Qaeda’s popularity has waned quite a bit, there, in all likelihood because the Iraqi rebels, Baathists for the most part, are fighting mainly to regain the stature they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein, perhaps with a small side order of statesmanly impulses.

As such, they see, as most of their fellow countrymen do, that the new Iraq with all its freedoms is far preferable to the Iraq that the Islamofascists of al-Qaeda would embrace if they had any say in the governing of the land of Scheherazade.

And they want that as badly as they want the pox.

What our folks over there are doing by stirring the pot is a smart move — with the Iraqi rebels, our own forces and Iraqi troops all ranged against them, we’ll get rid of al-Qaeda-in-Iraq that much more quickly and…

Insurgents told the newspaper that there is widespread hatred for al Qaeda among ordinary Iraqis. Abu Amin, an insurgent leader in Yusefiya and a former captain in the Iraqi Army, told the Times the Americans were especially interested in securing help against al Qaeda, about whom they asked many questions: “Do you have a relationship with? Can you help us attack al Qaeda? Can you uproot al Qaeda from Iraq?”

…with any luck, finally convince the insurgents to give the new government a try. What they don’t seem to have yet grasped is that the prime reason they have a minority representing them in the government is because they are a minority in Iraq — their previous power existed at the pleasure of a dictator who is no longer running the country, and now the majority rules, but in a democracy they have the right of dialogue and debate that, approached with reason, can do more to improve their lot than any number of weapons, threats and bombings.

The major reason I haven’t posted anything about the Abramoff debacle is that I don’t view it as a political issue. Pure and simple, it is a criminal justice affair — the man is a crook, he’s going down for it and that’s the way of things.

It is no surprise to me, given their desperation to discredit Bush, that the Angry Left has been doing their best to spin this into a Bush-bashing event.

What connections there are to any politicians on either side of the aisle(Harry reid’s name has, it seems, been mentioned briefly in connection with an Abramoff associate) will be unlikely to have any significant impact upon their respective political careers or incur any criminal charges, though Representative Robert W. Ney(R, Ohio) would seem to have been a smidgeon more receptive than most of his colleagues to Abramoff’s largesse, and may or may not encounter the roosting of his proverbial chickens as a result.

That said, Jack Abramoff is a criminal, a lobbyist gone bad(at least, gone bad and been caught at it), not a politician. His actions are just that: His actions, and can only be laid at the feet of the administration by political opposition for political purposes, without any honorable or even remotely respectable foundation for any accusations levelled. In short, only leftist hacks need apply.

In fact, a well thought out column appeared in Review & Outlook in yesterday’s WSJ Opinion Journal with which I tend to agree, and that, friends, is the last I have to say about the reprehensible Mr. Abramoff and his well publicized legal problems.

As for Bush Administration involvement?

…it’s worth pointing out that Mr. Abramoff and his coterie aren’t getting off easy. His plea deal includes a likely 10-year sentence, which is the same as the one handed to Enron’s Andy Fastow. Co-conspirator Michael Scanlon has also copped to a felony, and others are expected to follow. No one can accuse the Bush Justice Department of giving these GOP scoundrels a pass, in contrast to the way Janet Reno’s Department went soft on Harold Ickes and others after the 1996 campaign-finance shenanigans.

Note: Emphasis mine.

It’s also notable how few Members of Congress so far have truly been implicated, beyond accepting entirely legal campaign contributions. The most culpable is Ohio’s Bob Ney, who has been cited in a “criminal information” for receiving trips and other favors in return for statements entered into the Congressional Record. Mr. Ney says that he too was duped, but there’s no question he was willing to tap dance on cue for Mr. Scanlon, and that alone is sleaze-by-willing-association. If the House Ethics Committee serves any useful purpose, sanctioning Mr. Ney ought to be it.

Here is the entire column.

In a column today in Jewish World Review, Paul Greenberg gets down!

Dana Priest of The Washington Post sounds shocked — shocked! — to discover that George W. Bush ordered a complete remobilization and reinvigoration of the CIA immediately after September 11th:

“The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al-Qaida has grown into the largest CIA covert-action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over clandestine tactics . . . .”

This is news? Isn’t this just what W. told the country he would do in the aftermath of September 11th?

Read the entire column here!

As I’ve opined in several posts in the past, being a journalist carries with it certain responsibilities, such as fair, unbiased, accurate reporting, of which, along with any vestige of personal honor among journalists, there is a paucity in today’s mainstream media. They are, after all, the people from whom the public expects to receive an accurate picture of current events, not the left-biased, incomplete accounts provided in order to make President Bush and his administration appear incompetent, evil tools of Haliburton and the rest of “Corporate America.”

But such is life, the only ethics followed by liberals are those that help them achieve whatever “ends” they want to achieve. What Clinton was able to do with impunity is a heinous crime if Bush does anything like it.

Another responsibility of an American journalist, and indeed of his or her entire organization, is to use common sense when deciding upon whether to print or broadcast a news item whose impartation to the public might engender a threat to the security of the nation and the very lives of its citizens.

The New York Times’ decision to inform the world of Bush and the NSAs’ monitoring of telephone calls between known or suspected al-Qaida contacts in the U.S. and people outside the country was the result of just such a decision. As the President told the Times a year ago, such action would do significant damage to the fabric of our homeland security structure.

Yet, in the interests of starting a politically partisan fueled brouhaha aimed at Bush, they went ahead and published the story.

I don’t care how they spin their “the people have a right to know” BS{that sentiment doesn’t seem to appear in the Constitution anyplace, only in the minds of the media), the bottom line is that, along with their as yet undiscovered inside informants, they have committed treason. They are traitors.

The New York Times reporters who broke the Bush “Spygate” story, as well as the paper’s top executives who approved its publication, face the very real prospect of criminal indictment by the Bush Justice Department - a lawyer involved in the 1971 Pentagon Papers battle is warning.

With a full-blown Justice Department investigation now underway, Harvey Silvergate tells the Boston Phoenix: “A variety of federal statutes, from the Espionage Act on down, give Bush ample means to prosecute the Times reporters who got the scoop, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau.”

Only time will tell if this really comes to pass, but I’d be behind it one hundred percent if it did, as it’s time some lessons were learned and some memories refreshed about the value of patriotism and the importance of preserving the republic over that of scoring cheap internel political victories.

In her current column at the Washington Times, Suzanne Fields alludes rightly(no pun intended, although…) that there has been a visible resurgence of conservative thought among today’s university students, much to the chagrin of the more left wing faculty members.

Tenured professors are hysterical (a good “gendering” word) over the rise of the right on the campus, of students who aren’t buying into lesbian literature, identity politics, deconstructionism, feminism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, Marxism, gay culturalism and all the other -isms that have dominated the curriculum for the generation since the ’60s. Assumptions are under siege.

This is extremely refreshing, as it demonstrates that four decades of unchecked leftist idiocy is finally beginning to be counterbalanced by more sane, alternative thinking — read that as a return, in some quarters, to conservative idealogies which, on the whole, are exponentionally more constructive in terms of the preservation of the United States and our Constitutional background by the next generations of Americans in the marketplace and at the polls than most of their predecessors over the last forty years.

It was therefore a great pleasure to learn that Tufts University’s campus newspapers include a conservative publication called The Primary Source, a sample of which, online, is here.

Excerpt:

If there ever was an issue in the current political climate that has been polluted by the pessimism of the mainstream media, it is the economy. The mainstream media employs public opinion polls to vindicate its perception of the national debate. Unfortunately, the facts—most importantly those about the economy—are too often discounted. A November USA Today/CNN Gallup Poll found that approximately 37 percent of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of the economy, which equals their approval of his overall job performance. The information that really affects Americans day by day is about dollars and cents, and as it stands, they do not get the positive news about the economy they deserve to hear.

Thank you people so much for helping to bring right thinking back to the campus.

In the next few days I will be slightly restructuring the listing format in my blogroll, and The Primary Source will have a permanent link therein.

This seems to be the week for boneheads-in-training for The World’s Dumbest Criminals. On Tuesday, there was this guy, and now we have a real winner who apparently aspired to be a jewel thief.

FARGO, N.D. - Diamond earrings stolen from a college fundraiser were recovered when a Minnesota man tried to have them appraised at the jewelry store that donated them, authorities said.

Police said the man was arrested after he brought the $4,600 earrings to Wimmer’s Jewelry at the West Acres mall. Store owner Brad Wimmer said the man had the original box along with the description of the jewelry.

“It was all very goofy,” Wimmer said. “The value of the earrings was right on the description.”

Goofy, right.

The value of the earrings automatically makes the theft a felony, so hasta la bye bye, bonehead.