Dark Rantings

If anyone is thinking about opening brokerage or other accounts with Merrill Lynch, or are considering moving your accounts to or from Merrill, perhaps you should know that they can and do, with no prior warning, freeze and close your accounts. I had accounts with Merrill Lynch for over 20 years, yet today I got a form letter from the assistant to our broker (guess the broker himself didn't have the balls to sign his name to it) saying that our accounts were closed. Isn't that sweet.

Needless to say, I do NOT recommend Merrill Lynch.

Posted by mikki at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks, Gaige. This is just too funny for words. What a loser.

NEWS HILTON'S FLIGHT DRAMA Music, movie & Entertainment News:


Socialite PARIS HILTON was forced to drive from Las Vegas, Nevada to Los Angeles after airline officials told her she couldn't bring her six pets on her planned flight home.
The hotel heiress brought her monkey, tiger and her ferrets

to Sin City for a weekend of partying and was unimpressed when she realised she would have to spend the long drive with all the animals.
Hilton says, "I bought, like, a monkey, a tiger and some ferrets. I tried to bring them on a commercial flight and they wouldn't let me fly with all the animals. They said it wasn't a travelling circus.
"So I had to drive all the way home from Vegas in the limo with all these animals, there was like six. It was a lot."

Posted by mikki at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, someone who is not a "shill" for the ISPs or for those insane free speech weirdos with something interesting to say about Net neutrality. Gaige is a cool guy so you really oughta read this :-).

Gaige's Pages - Network neutrality is about control:


Whereas the rhetoric is certainly intended to incite and not to inform (I don't believe that either side of any argument uses a slogan to inform, by the way), it isn't just empty fluff. In particular, as you noted earlier in the piece, the costs for services will eventually be borne by the customers regardless of who they pay for them and how they're provided. The purpose of the net neutrality folks is to put the control of paying for service in the hands of the consumers, where a customer who wants to use any number of services that consume large amounts of bandwidth pays for a higher quality, higher bandwidth, and probably higher-priced connection. This does two things: first, it makes the payments transparent, since the users know they are using bandwidth to watch television or movies, or other things that either take a long time or involve a high level of interactivity; second, it provides an avenue for innovative, high bandwidth services to get a start in the world.

Posted by mikki at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Wiccan 501(c)(3) group that preaches tolerance and acceptance, attempted to register at the Non Profit registration site at WeCareToo (http://www.wecaretoo.com) and received a quite nasty rebuke due solely to their religion.

Please, if you are in the mood, write letters of education to info@wecaretoo.com and to all of their sponsors located both on their website and on http://www.wecaretoo.com/Mall/lobby.html to let them know how bigoted their stance is, and how misleading it is to hold oneself out as a neutral registry for non profits, while inserting your own religious bias.

My letter:

Were you aware that you have many sites contrary to your states policy of:

%%%%%%%%%%%
Thank you for your application for a free web page in the WeCareToo
non-profit online directory. We must inform you, however, that we will not
be able to list your organization in our directory. While we do list
religious groups of various faiths, we have adopted a policy not to offer
listings to groups that are either atheist, pagan or support belief in
witchcraft. We acknowledge your right to hold your own beliefs and hope you
can accept our right not to assist you in extending your beliefs as they are
completely counter to ours. In good conscience we do not feel we can be true
to our beliefs and convictions where we to help you extend your reach to
others through our web site.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Under your definition, Al Qaida or other groups that embrace jihad would be welcome, yet Wiccans would not. You welcome Hindus, a Pagan religion by definition, yet exclude Wiccans. You accept Protestant Fundamentalists who "support belief in witchcraft" by maintaining the myth that it exists and is dangerous, yet exclude Wiccans, who strive to harm no one in their daily lives.

You state that the beliefs of atheists, Pagans or "supporters of witchcraft" are counter to your own. Are you so sure, obviously not understanding or being aware of the beliefs you exclude? Wiccans are far from "anti" any other religious path, and instead desire that all paths live together in harmony. How sad that you rail against something you don't know anything about.

Your message of bigotry is being widely disseminated. Jesus preached tolerance. Perhaps someday you can aspire to follow his words.

Posted by mikki at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I bet they even called themselves Christian and went to church.

CNN.com - Cops: Couple ordered hit on grandkids - Jun 2, 2006:


TAVARES, Florida (AP) -- A couple tried to hire a hit man to kill their three grandchildren and daughter-in-law to stop them from testifying against their son in his rape trial, authorities said.

The couple, ages 60 and 59, were charged with four counts each of criminal conspiracy to commit murder. They were being held without bond.

Police said the pair initially offered $100 to an undercover sheriff's deputy to kill their son's wife, their 10-year-old granddaughter, two step-grandchildren, ages 14 and 16, and the family dog.

More money was promised after the killings, said Lake County sheriff's Sgt. Christie Mysinger.

The couple's 31-year-old son has been jailed since November on 22 charges of sexual battery on a child, lewd and lascivious molestation and showing obscene material to a minor, court records show.

Detectives say his daughter and stepdaughter are the victims. The Associated Press has withheld the names of the grandparents and the family members to protect the children's identities.

The man tried to solicit a fellow jail inmate to kill his family, the arrest report said.

An informant told detectives about the plot and they arranged to meet the man's parents Tuesday at a Best Western motel in Tavares, a lakefront community about 30 miles northwest of Orlando, police said.

"(The deputy) said, 'You want me to kill everyone, including the dog?' They agreed," Mysinger said.

The son's attorney, Peter Sartes, said he had no details on the parents' arrest. It was not clear who was representing them.

Posted by mikki at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Daily News - Home - Offensive, moronic, stupid:


State Controller Alan Hevesi issued groveling apologies yesterday - saying it was "remarkably stupid" for him to inexplicably declare Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "will put a bullet between the President's eyes."
The Democrat made the stunning gaffe at the Queens College commencement as he praised Schumer's work in Washington and the senator's willingness to take on the White House.

Dressed in a ceremonial gown, Hevesi called Schumer "the man who, uh, uh, how do I phrase this diplomatically, will put a bullet between the President's eyes if he could get away with it."

Later at a hastily called news conference, Hevesi ate a huge helping of crow.

"What I intended to say was that Chuck Schumer is incredibly smart, courageous, willing even to stand up to the President of the United States," Hevesi said.

"What came out of my mouth was that Chuck Schumer is smart and brave and capable of putting a bullet between the President's eyes."

Hevesi called his comment "incredibly moronic," "totally offensive" and "remarkably stupid" - assessments his GOP foes echoed.

He apologized publicly to President Bush and also phoned Schumer with a private mea culpa.

So far, the Queens pol said, he hasn't gotten a call from the Secret Service. There was no immediate reaction from the White House.

Posted by mikki at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! - May 30, 2006:


MAY 30--Zoinks! A Minnesota drug dealer was busted last week on felony drug charges after his 6 year-old son turned up at school with a Scooby-Doo backpack filled with his daddy's marijuana stash. According to the below criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court, when a teacher asked Corey Randle's son to check his bag for a folder, the boy pulled out a sandwich bag containing 25 baggies of pot. School officials quickly seized the weed and called St. Paul police, but not before Randle--pictured at right in a Ramsey County Sheriff's Office mug shot--realized his boy had the drugs. The 29-year-old father, who beat a hasty path to the school and left with his son, was tracked to his home where he told cops he used his drug dealing money "to pay for cigarettes." According to a prosecutor with the county attorney's office, an additional misdemeanor child endangerment charge has also been filed against Randle.

Posted by mikki at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)