The Day The World Changed Forever

 

It's Thursday, November 22, 1963, and President John F. Kennedy accompanied by his wife, Jacqueline, are sitting the in back of the Presidential limousine riding through Dallas.  A few minutes after this picture was taken President Kennedy was shot and killed when his motorcade traveled through Dealy Plaza, and the world changed forever.

In my humble opinion, JFK was the last Democratic president we've had that was worth a shit.  He genuinely cared about the country and the people in it, as did the Democratic party as a whole.  But when that bully from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was sworn in as President a little after 2PM that horrific day, that was the moment that the Democratic party that had taken the country through WWII died forever.  It has taken 62 years for it to happen, but the Democratic party has gone from the party of peace to the party of hate.  The party whose members demonstrated in the streets to end the carnage of the Vietnam War is now the party whose members riot, loot, and burn whenever a criminal is killed while trying to kill a police officer.  The party whose members spoke of peace and harmony is now the party whose members spew hate and division, espousing inclusion while excluding, deriding, and insulting those who disagree with them.

JFK would be ashamed to see what has happened to his party and the country in general, and he'd be even more dismayed to realize that it was his party that ruined America.

I remember when this day was always recognized in printed news media, on the radio, and on television.  The 25th anniversary of his assassination was a big deal, but the 50th anniversary barely saw any coverage at all.  And I'm sure that today we might hear a one line closing statement on some of the news programs, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The country has forgotten JFK and what he did for us, and that is our national shame.

But as a person who was only a small child when he died but who has studied up on what he accomplished, I'll never forget.  He was a great man and a great President, and we should never forget him.

I won't.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

I'm DONE with Amazon!

 

As the title says, I'm DONE with Amazon, and here's why.

I got a flurry of text messages last Saturday morning from both of my credit card companies AND from my bank that issued my debit card alerting me to possible fraud purchases on Amazon.  So I made all of the necessary phone calls and got both credit cards changed to new account numbers and my debit card closed as well.  But the bad news about that was that I had NO access to any money because the credit cards were closed and I didn't have the new ones, and I couldn't get a new debit card until Monday morning - and this on the day that my sister was coming down for the weekend.  So I pulled the Amex card out that I keep for emergencies and used it for the weekend.  Problem solved.

The new Discover card arrived Tuesday, and as of this morning (November 20th) I have not received the new Capital One card.  I went and got a new debit card yesterday, so we're good, right?

Or so I thought.  Last night at 10:45PM I got a text message alerting me to a possible fraudulent transaction on my wife's credit card that was linked to my old Discover card - the credit card that she has NEVER used.  She's never even carried it - I gave it to her years ago and she put it away, where it sits to this day.  So the text message told me to respond with 'yes' if I made the transaction, and 'no' if I didn't - and I immediately sent NO.

Someone else replied YES.  On my TEXT MESSAGE program.

But since I had replied 'no' they locked the credit card anyway.  When I got up this morning I went into my Amazon account (which is where my wife's card was used) and saw that not only was that fraudulent purchase listed, there were FOUR other purchases that had been denied for possible fraud as well, and those four purchases were made with - hang onto your underwear - THE CREDIT CARD THAT I HAVEN'T RECEIVED YET!

So I immediately called Capital One to find out what the fuck was going on, and during the conversation I was told that they have an agreement with Amazon and several other companies that whenever a credit card being used on their site was upgraded or changed, THEY AUTOMATICALLY SEND THE INFORMATION ON THE NEW CARD TO AMAZON.  

Whoever hacked into my Amazon account had the information on my new credit card before I did, and used it to try and make purchases.   

Yeah, I said the same thing as you just did.  I immediately called Amazon and told them what was going on, and told them to close my account and delete all data in it immediately.  That process usually takes ten days, and I had already set the process in motion two days ago, but as you can see someone still tried to use my account to make fraudulent purchases.  When I told the guy from Amazon Customer Service this I also told him I wanted the account closed IMMEDIATELY, and that I was NOT going to wait ten days.  I wanted it closed RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW.  

And he did.  My Amazon account is now gone, never to return.

So now my only issue is the one where someone else replied to a text message on my phone.  So I called Spectrum and talked with a very nice lady who told me that Amazon sends out 3 kinds of notifications of possible fraud - an e-mail, a push notification, and a text message.  She asked me if I had gotten them, and I told her I had received the e-mail and the text message, but had not gotten a push notification (I never use push notifications).

She then told me that whoever hacked into my Amazon account had set up push notifications to go to THEM, and when they responded 'yes' to the push notification about the fraudulent transaction, their response also showed up on my text message. That's how push notifications work.

So no, my phone wasn't hacked which was my last concern.  I then told her what Capital One had told me about automatically updating credit card information with Amazon, and she was as astounded as I was. 

As it stands right now, I have yet another new Capital One card coming (which is being expedited so I should have it tomorrow or Saturday at the latest), my Discover card is good because I haven't entered it into ANY electronic database (nor will I), and I have a safe, secure, functioning debit card.

The common denominator in this is Amazon.  One of THEIR employees hacked into my account and made a bunch of fraudulent purchases at my expense, and when I asked the guy from Amazon Customer Service what they were going to do about it, I got the scripted tired old response of "we'll conduct an investigation and take the appropriate actions."

Which means they won't do shit.  But that's fine, because I'm done with Amazon for good.  My account is closed, the data is erased, and that's that.

If you have an Amazon account I strongly encourage you to either close it or use something like Google Pay or Apple Pay to buy things.  But under NO circumstances should you use your debit card or a credit card!  If they used PayPal I maybe would have kept my account, but they don't, so that's that.

Now to get on with the rest of my day.  It's going up into the 70s today and I hear my bike calling me.

I must answer the call.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

 

A Brief Southern History Lesson

 

And here it is.  I'll try to be brief, but this is a topic of which I am VERY well educated and could talk on for hours, but I won't.

1.  White people didn't invent slavery.  Slavery has been around since Biblical times. The Old Testament contains laws that regulate slavery, which was a common practice in the ancient world. For example, Leviticus 25:44-46 allows Israelites to purchase slaves from other nations as inherited property. The Bible also lays out rules on how both slave owners and slaves should act, even calling for Israelite slaves to be released after six years.

2.  Blacks in Africa were enslaved by other blacks, and were then sold to other countries.  The common misbelief is that the slave traders would conduct raids into Africa and capture the locals, then ship them off to other countries (specifically America) and sell them.  The truth is that the African tribes - specifically the Zulus - would raid villages of other tribes, enslave the people, then sell them to the slave traders.  The slave traders never went any further into Africa than where they were docked.

3.  At one time slavery existed in every state of the Union.  Yes, even though it was admitted into the Union as a free state, Slavery existed in California.  People who moved to the state brought their slaves with them, and California did nothing to prevent it.  The state even adopted a version of the 1852 Fugitive Slave Act which helped return runaway slaves to their owners.

4.  Blacks owned slaves, with one of the wealthiest Southern slave owners being a black man.  Antoine Dubuclet of Louisiana owned approximately 100 slaves and was only one of several wealthy black slave owners.  William Ellison Jr. was a former slave who became a blacksmith, and by 1860 he was one of the wealthiest property owners in South Carolina, owning 63 slaves and 900 acres of land.

5.  The average Confederate soldier was fighting to protect his homeland, not to preserve slavery.  Sure, they knew that the Southern politicians were all about preserving slavery and they knew the reason for it, but the main reason they fought was to protect their homes and their lands from the "Yankee invaders."   If you want to read something that tell you why the men on both sides fought, then I strongly suggest you read "For Cause and Comrades."  It's a book made up of letters, journals, messages, and diaries from men on both sides of the conflict and it tells why each of them fought.  (Hint:  Most Yankees were fighting to preserve the Union, not free the slaves - including General US Grant.)

6.  Most slave trading companies were based in Boston.  Yes, there were several in the South, but the biggest and most successful slave trading companies were based in Boston.

7.  The Confederate flag never flew from a slave ship.  Every slave ship from America flew the Stars and Stripes, not the Stars and Bars.

8.  The Confederate States of America outlawed the slave trade before the United States did.  When the Confederate Constitution was drafted and approved in 1861 it specifically outlawed the importation of any new slaves into the Confederacy.  But it did nothing, however, to abolish slavery entirely as it allowed current slave owners to keep their slaves.  The United States didn't abolish slavery until AFTER the war with the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution.

9.  Harriet Beecher Stowe never saw a Southern plantation.  She actually never set foot in the South at all.  She wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" based on the interviews with former slaves and stories in the Yankee newspapers that she had read.  In other words, her book was based not on facts but on heresay.

I could go on, but I think you get the point by now.

I'm just as proud of the South as I am of the United States, and for the same reasons.  Both have made HUGE mistakes (like how the US treated both the Irish and the American Indians, for example), but in the entire history of the world there has never been a 'perfect' country or one that didn't make mistakes.  Americans have always believed in standing up for what they believed in, and that's true even today.  While not all of the people of the South believed in slavery, they did believe in defending their homes from an invader, so they went to war for it - just as their grandfathers went to war to repel the British invaders 85 years prior.

That's why I'm proud to be both an American and a Southerner, and that's why I fly both the Stars and Stripes AND the Stars and Bars.

And if you have a problem with that, then that's a 'you' problem and not a 'me' problem.

Deo Vindice

IHC 

 

 

The Beginning of the End

 

Every now and then something happens to prove to me just how truly stupid people can be, and last night's election in New York City is the latest incident. I remember in the days following 9/11 everyone saying that they wouldn't forget what happened on that day, but it's apparent by the election results that the people of New York City have indeed forgotten.

Now that Mamdani has been elected mayor, one of two things is going to happen - he's either going to fulfill his campaign promises and gut the city and its programs or he won't. If he's successful and carries out his programs then you can expect to see a mass exodus of rich people from New York City because they're not going to stay there and let him increase their taxes to pay for the handouts that he wants to give to all of the people who are too lazy go get a job. That means rent prices are going to fall through the floor because there's going to be more real estate available than there is demand for, and once he finishes gutting the social programs and defunding the police crime is going to skyrocket which will drive the average person out of New York City.  His efforts to take over the grocery stores will result in mom and pop businesses either banding together to fight him or closing shop and moving to another location where they don't have to fight him. Either way, you can count on seeing shortages of food and long lines for the food that will be available, just like in every other Socialist-led country.

Or after six months when he hasn't been able to do anything that he promised he was going to do he'll blame it on the legislature. He'll say that he tried to do this and this and he tried to do such and such, but either the legislature or the New York Senate have stood in his way.

What I think he will probably do is blame it on Trump. One way or the other he will follow the liberal playbook and find someone else to blame his failures on; that is, after all, the way liberals do things – and their favorite person to blame their failures on at the moment is Trump.

All I know is that the once great city of New York is now on its way to becoming one great big third world shithole. I'm just glad I don't live there and have to deal with it firsthand.

We've got to stop asking the liberal left how stupid they could be because they're beginning to take it as a challenge.

Deo Vindice

IHC