Category: Law

I know we’re all too smart to fall for this

But here’s a reminder from TELUS anyway:

 

TELUS is warning customers to be aware of these frauds, and to just hang up when scammers call.

The scams are:

  • Fraudulent email to telus.net email customers. The email falsely states TELUS is sending this email to all customers for ‘safety/maintenance from spam mails.’ It asks users to reply to the email with account information including name and password, saying they will be disconnected if they do not reply.
  • Credit card limit increase phone scam. The fraudster claim to be with your credit card company and offers to increase your credit limit. He/she asks for information to verify who you are. If the caller was actually from your credit card company they wouldn’t have to ask for basic information.
  • Vehicle warranty. There are several variants of this scheme and in most cases the caller is attempting to sell a warranty extension for your vehicle. Several of the organizations behind these schemes have been banned from soliciting in some provinces and states due to misrepresentation of their products and failure to comply with local insurance laws.
  • 809 Caribbean scam. The fraudster will try to convince the customer to call a number starting with 809 about winning a prize or a lawsuit or for information about an injured or ill family member. 809 is the country area code for the Dominican Republic, which lacks the robust phone laws Canadians are accustomed to. When victims call back, they are often put on hold for an extended period of time, racking up large phone bills.
  • The 90# scam. This phone scam affects businesses with a commercial switchboard called a PBX. These systems have a feature that allows switchboard operators to give callers an outside line by dialing 9, 0, #. Fraudsters take advantage of this feature by posing as technicians or other legitimate callers, and convincing operators to give them an outside line which they then use for an expensive overseas call. While residential phone customers cannot be directly affected by this scam they do get calls, which can often be frightening.

 

Humour is ever so much better than violence

Prop 8 takes one in the goolies.

The cats, each in his own way, mourn Jeff’s absence; one by pissing copiously all over the chair he normally occupies in the kitchen, I’ve already Feliway’d it, and the other by voluntarily sitting in my lap for the first time in six months.  Gizmo was sitting in my lap when Eddie started howling piteously at the back door (the wind is rattling the doors and windows) so I had to stand up and push him off my lap.  He sat in the kitchen doorway, tail switching and with a miffed look.  He let Eddie have a cuff on the way by for good measure.

Everybody, as one!

Allegra, you are bleeding crazy!

I spent most of last evening with Dax, and then went to Suzanne’s.  I didn’t argue with him.  I didn’t give him any money.  And we worked on cover letters and talked.  I also met his dad.

Why the **** would I do that?  Well, I have a number of reasons.  First, I wanted to be very clear with him what my rationale is for going anywhere near him after all the horrible stuff that happened with Katie.  I want him to be working, not in jail.  If he’s working, he can pay rent, help his family, think about getting some money together for school, and have something resembling a life. If he’s in jail, not so much.  Second, I am wanting to shed my reputation as an evil cow; I got to hear some of the stuff Dax said about me second hand, and I kinda want to prove it’s not really true.  One can say, “But if he’s in jail he can’t hurt Katie!” but I would really prefer he was paying taxes.  Third, it’s really hard for me to model forgiveness and getting on with your life if I refuse to do it because it’s hard.  Humans is apes.  It’s easier for the ape to do what it has seen being done.

Tammy said that the biggest difference between poor people and rich people is that poor people don’t get a lot of training or practice in deferring gratification.  There is no next year; there is no tomorrow.

Except, unfortunately, there is.

Update, and then off to Victoria

Keith was here last night.  I always feels me some better when my peeps are here.  (Cheeze Whiz,  maybe middle aged white women should lay off the ghetto slang.)  More to the point – we watched CSI and hung out.

I spoke briefly to Katie on the phone (I had been communicating with Dax and wanted to give her the update (she was supportive)) and gleaned the intelligence that she’s called the cops on him for phone harassment.  Given that even speaking to her technically puts him in breach of conditions for the last time he assaulted her, his PO intervened and said, slowly and clearly, that if he called Katie again he was going back to jail.  Dax has issues, but a desire to go back to jail isn’t one of them.

To be fair, I have to stay clear of him as well, never mind the temptation of being Evil McNasty to him in emails.  I am not proud of myself at the moment, but I HAD to vent, and Katie, as I said, reviewed my comments and at one point giggled and said, “Go Mom!”   So, the damage is extensive – Katie had 5 years in an abusive relationship, is out about 1700 dollars – most of the school money she saved for herself, which was why she ended up at my door and Paul’s for funds – pawned gifts, broken guitars, assaults by Dax’ housemate, and her relationship with Suzanne going sour…. yeah, she’s done.  For all of you who wanted to know is this it, I think calling his PO and threatening to file a report looks like a stake in the Slayer’s hand.

That said, IF he got and kept a job, paid her back, made amends, abjured violence and verbal abuse, and made peace with me, Paul and Keith, AND Katie wanted him back, I’d accept him as a son in law.  Stranger things have happened.  I believe very sincerely in the ability of people to change for the better, but it seems changing for the worse is easier.  As things stand now, Katie might want him back in an alternate universe, but this one will have to survive without their love.

Transphobia

Quoted from today’s tyee.ca:

 

Ten Signs of Transphobia in Our Culture, by Christopher A. Shelley

 

  1. Denial that the problem exists in the first place. 

     

  2. Inability to distinguish between categories such as queer, gay, lesbian, and trans. 

     

  3. Lack of meaningful discussion in educational and workplace settings. 

     

  4. Anxiety over not being able to tell if a person is male or female. 

     

  5. Crude jokes directed towards trans people or with trans-related content. 

     

  6. Refusal to accept trans people as one’s own teacher, doctor, politician, dentist, etc. 

     

  7. Thinking that being trans is OK but also dismissing the idea of ever dating a transperson. 

     

  8. Reducing trans to being merely and solely a psychiatric category. 

     

  9. Trivialization and media spectacles centred on trans-ness as an object of ‘fascination.’ 

     

  10. Refusing the fundamental claims of transpeople as being genuinely mis-sexed.

 

Book launch for Transpeople: Repudiation, Trauma, Healing. Event begins at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 25, at Little Sister’s bookstore, 1238 Davie St., Vancouver. RSVP to awilson@utpress.utoronto.ca.

Ow ow ow part 435

Get your war on has something to say about making rape victims pay for their own rape kits.  Jeff sent me this.

Speaking as somebody who accompanied a woman for a post rape exam, I say right the **** on.  I personally have never been raped.  That’s luck and smarts, but mostly luck.  (Note – the rape victim commented afterwards that the rape exam was in some ways harsher than the rape.  I was horrified.  Her response was, “I was drunk when I was assaulted, and I was sober for the exam.”)

I think I have to take a walk now….

Peaceful weekend

It was the kind of weekend when I did a little cooking and a little laundry and a lot of lazing around, so I consider it a success.  The crows are flying to their day jobs, the sky is strewn with grey, pink and purple, there’s a siren in the distance and it’s just like a regular Tuesday….. except there’s tapioca in the fridge.

So what happened in the world.  Looks like Canadians are headed to the polls, although the date has not yet been set.  McCain picked a running mate without vetting her seriously first, which strikes me as mildly insane but not really surprising.  The Tories want to revamp public health in the wake of the food borne pathogen outbreak.  I thought this meant they were going to hand out free Pepto-Bismol but apparently they are going to do something a little more substantive.  Well, good luck on that; it’s kind of hard to enforce standards when you have no inspectors.  Maybe they will get more inspectors. Funny family story; when my uncle Gary was a youngun he helped inspect food production facilities in Ontario for a summer and at the end of it the only thing he would eat was Laura Secord chocolates.  I really don’t think much has changed.  When I was a puppy I worked for a structural engineering firm that did the upgrades to the Maple Leaf plants in Toronto and the boys would come back from site inspections and regale the other employees with what actually goes on in a meatpacking plant, especially if the other employees decide they don’t like you.  Blech.  Plus ça change, baybee.

I guess it wasn’t a peaceful weekend for everybody.  Amy Goodman discusses her arrest.

How bigotry plays out in the courts

Transgender vs Library….

I had met one transgender person in my life before the welcoming congregation process at the U*U church.  Then I met two and it was quite startling.  There’s no one standard transgender person.  You can SAY all women are alike, but you know they’re not.  You can SAY all black people are alike, and that’s another damned lie.  I can understand the hiring authority being confused, but not staying confused…..

Anyway, it’s a good article and quite thought provoking.