Links and Minifeatures 01 22 Sunday

The Great Escape from Voice Jail. Anybody can say they've got great customer service. When the reality is that you try your best to use computer automation and phone trees as a shield against your customers talking to someone, that's pathetic. Of course, customer service is pathetic nearly everywhere these days. If I need to do fast food, I want to go where the food is decent and I have a chance of getting my food while it's still at least warm. But I dread it because the counter help pretty much everywhere is hopelessly incompetent at customer service. Furthermore, they keep trying to sell me more food. You really want to sell me more food, improve your counter service, because right now all I want is to get in, get the absolute minimum I need, and get out before I get too mad at these bozos. If the customer service was better, I might be willing to occasionally order more than a sandwich.



My wife and I have a salad buffet resturaunt we love to go to. In fact it's our favorite restaurant, period. The reason? Well, the food is a big part of it, but they have this one older gentleman who is not only fantastic on customer service, but his attitude is contagious to the point where he brings everyone in contact with him up to a higher level of service. The manager could set his prices higher than any other restaurant in the chain (there are several around), and we'd still go there.

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Jawa Report is due congratulations on two fronts. First off, it's his two year blogoversary. Second off, and more important, he has helped nail an actual would be-terrorist. His post details his involvement, and thoroughly debunks all of the Patriot Act alarmism that has spread through the ACLU and allied idiots.



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Ameriquest in $325M Settlement With States. I strongly suspect this is a case of Criminals are fined a thousand dollars for stealing a million.



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Utterly cool: Space 'Slinky' Confirms Theory with a Twist



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Say Anything has a good point to make about how the indian casinos are escaping consequences of the Abramoff scandal. They shouldn't. (San Diego County has got to have more Indian casinos per capita than anywhere else in the country. I can think of six right off the top of my head, and two more within a few miles of the county line)



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neo-neocon compares North Korea to Lucy and the football. The difference is that North Korea is desperate. Lucy was just mean.



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HT to Dean's World for this link to a thoughtful essay on why broadcast TV may be dead and what killed it. Piracy is Good.



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Below the Beltway has a post about an interesting proposal made by James Carville and Paul Begala. My take is to look at who is making the proposal. They're both Donkeys, and the Donkeys would benefit from this proposal. The Elephants are currently outraising them by a considerable margin. That would be okay if I thought the country would benefit, but it wouldn't.



In short, when you get into the details, it's about partisan advantage, not about helping the country.



Not to mention "little details" like the First Amendment standing in the way.



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Sorry. Out of time. Off to hold an open house!