I'm not an eBay addict. I buy through eBay or Half.Com a few times a year, usually relatively small items (books or the obsolete video game stuff that my 7-year-old is obsessed with). And the experience is almost always great. Earlier this month, I bought a Sega Dreamcast as an early Christmas present for said 7-year-old. The item didn't arrive exactly as advertised (a missing controller), but the seller took near-instant action to correct that.
I've had precisely one bad experience buying things this way, and coming up on the two-year anniversary of that experience, I figure it's a good time to put in a bad word for the seller just as the holiday season cranks up.
The item was was a mere $14.99 -- $20 and change with shipping, etc. It was an "E-Reader," a device that hooks up to the old original Nintendo GameBoy and allows games to be scanned in from cards. Kind of neat if you're a (then) 5-year-old GameBoy addict. I had purchased from the seller before. I had received the items promptly and in the advertised condition, and had left positive feedback. So I was confident in buying from them again.
It never arrived. After the "expect no later than" date, I contacted the seller. I received no response. After 10 days, I posted negative feedback on the transaction. The seller's response? They posted negative feedback on me -- although I had paid for the item promptly, waited through the entire likely receipt period, contacted them, and given them time to respond. They then proposed that they'd withdraw their negative feedback if I'd withdraw mine. No offer to actually deliver the item they'd sold me or anything like that -- just "we'll stop lying about you if you stop telling the truth about us."
I don't negotiate with terrorists. And while nearly 99% of these guys' feedback was positive, when I dug through their negative feedback I found several other such incidents.
These guys ripped me off for twenty bucks. Actually, they ripped a five-year-old kid off for twenty bucks of his Christmas money and the enjoyment of something he reasonably expected to get for it, but I reimbursed him.
So, by way of what comes around goes around: If you're doing your holiday shopping at eBay or Half.Com, I advise you to avoid bidding on or buying items from egameuniverse.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Spare some change (we can believe in)?
In the first three days of its quarterly fundraising drive, AntiWar.Com raised $11,913. The math on that daily average comes to an eventual $27,797 for the week -- less than 40% of their $70,000 quarterly goal.
Yes, I know we just had a presidential election. Yes, I know the Democrats will take over the White House in January. Yes, I know they increased their majority in Congress.
I also know that Barack Obama campaigned against the war on Iraq in 2004 when he was running for US Senate; that he then voted to continue funding that war at every opportunity once he was elected; that he threw the anti-war movement under the bus every time it became an issue in his presidential campaign; and that the Democratic majority America elected to end the war in 2006 hasn't made so much as one single, solitary serious attempt to do so.
I can't help but notice that Obama has been firm in refusing to take aggression against Iran "off the table;" that despite many opportunities to do so to his own political profit, he's declined to put a less generally interventionist US foreign policy on that "table;" and that so far his announced and leaked administration picks look like the casting call for a remake of "Dr. Strangelove."
Oh, and I also recall that Democratic presidents presided over, and Democratic congressional majorities supported, all or most of the US involvements in WWI, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, as well as many of the "brushfire wars" in between those larger conflagrations.
If you think last week's election made AntiWar.Com superfluous, you've got another think coming. US interventions in the Obama era may feature blue helmets and wear out the word "humanitarian" in their propaganda, but try as I might I can't find any reason to believe we'll see any real, significant changes.
The War Party did a bang-up job of stacking the deck in this election, and AntiWar.Com is one of the few aces the sanity movement still holds in its hand. If we let it fold, we might as well fold, too.
Let me put the kind of money AntiWar.Com asks for in perspective for you:
AntiWar.Com's fundraising goal is $280,000 per year.
The US Department of Defense spends $238,425 on the war on Iraq per minute.
Like most of my readers, I'm not made of money -- but I send AntiWar.Com $5 a month every month, and I try to pry loose a few more dollars to throw at them come fundraiser time. Pretty please with sugar on top, do the same.
Note: No, I don't work for AntiWar.Com. Or, rather, I've done a wee little bit of work for AntiWar.Com, and I've always declined to accept payment for that work -- both because I want to help them, and because I want to be able to honestly tell you I'm not feathering my own nest when I urge you to help them.
Yes, I know we just had a presidential election. Yes, I know the Democrats will take over the White House in January. Yes, I know they increased their majority in Congress.
I also know that Barack Obama campaigned against the war on Iraq in 2004 when he was running for US Senate; that he then voted to continue funding that war at every opportunity once he was elected; that he threw the anti-war movement under the bus every time it became an issue in his presidential campaign; and that the Democratic majority America elected to end the war in 2006 hasn't made so much as one single, solitary serious attempt to do so.
I can't help but notice that Obama has been firm in refusing to take aggression against Iran "off the table;" that despite many opportunities to do so to his own political profit, he's declined to put a less generally interventionist US foreign policy on that "table;" and that so far his announced and leaked administration picks look like the casting call for a remake of "Dr. Strangelove."
Oh, and I also recall that Democratic presidents presided over, and Democratic congressional majorities supported, all or most of the US involvements in WWI, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, as well as many of the "brushfire wars" in between those larger conflagrations.
If you think last week's election made AntiWar.Com superfluous, you've got another think coming. US interventions in the Obama era may feature blue helmets and wear out the word "humanitarian" in their propaganda, but try as I might I can't find any reason to believe we'll see any real, significant changes.
The War Party did a bang-up job of stacking the deck in this election, and AntiWar.Com is one of the few aces the sanity movement still holds in its hand. If we let it fold, we might as well fold, too.
Let me put the kind of money AntiWar.Com asks for in perspective for you:
AntiWar.Com's fundraising goal is $280,000 per year.
The US Department of Defense spends $238,425 on the war on Iraq per minute.
Like most of my readers, I'm not made of money -- but I send AntiWar.Com $5 a month every month, and I try to pry loose a few more dollars to throw at them come fundraiser time. Pretty please with sugar on top, do the same.
Note: No, I don't work for AntiWar.Com. Or, rather, I've done a wee little bit of work for AntiWar.Com, and I've always declined to accept payment for that work -- both because I want to help them, and because I want to be able to honestly tell you I'm not feathering my own nest when I urge you to help them.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Announcement of candidacy
Fellow libertarians,
I initially planned to announce my 2012 candidacy for the presidency of the United States on April 6th, 2009, from the steps of the Old St. Louis Courthouse (history buffs shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out why), and I still intend to conduct a campaign event of some kind at that time and in that place.
I see, however, that others are already lining up with formal announcements or at least clear indications of their own intent ... and when a fight's brewing, I prefer to get in early.
It is therefore my distinct pleasure to announce that I will seek the 2012 presidential nominations of the Libertarian Party and the Boston Tea Party.
Why run for president -- and why, especially, for the presidential nominations of two parties which together usually account for less than one percent of the popular vote in presidential elections?
I could give you lots of reasons, but I'm going to stick with three for the moment: There are some hard truths that need to be told, I'm interested in telling them, and they're most effectively told from a bully pulpit.
Among those those hard truths are that the political wing of the libertarian movement will never make substantial progress toward its goals so long as it clings to the apron strings of the failed movements and parties of the past, remains in orbit around the present political "center," or falls prey to cargo-cultish notions of what constitutes "serious" politics.
If we want a libertarian future, we must create that future, not hope that our political opponents drag us along to it. They won't. They're not going in the direction we want to go in, they have no desire to go in the direction we want to go in, and to the extent that they're interested in us at all, they regard us either as fuel to be consumed or ballast to be dumped overboard at the earliest opportunity. I don't blame them. We haven't yet given them reason to regard us as a true threat to their power. It's time to change that.
As my friend and mentor L. Neil Smith once observed, "great men don't move to the center, they move the center." It's a big center, folks. Moving it will require a long lever, with us at the far end. I don't claim to be a great man ... but I hope to be part of a great movement, and to help that movement get further out on the lever and put some weight on it.
Insofar as cargo-cultism and "seriousness" are concerned, rest assured that I have nothing against suits and ties, friendly media interviews and the other requirements of realpolitick. What I do oppose is the absurd notion that waving around "mainstreamism" like some kind of voodoo fetish will magically boost us to competitive stature versus our older, more established opponents. It won't.
The future of the libertarian movement, if it is has one, requires a principled populist approach rooted in class theory. Not the theory of the socialists (labor versus capital) or of the liberals and conservatives (ad hoc identity politics adjusted to appeal to society's phobias du jour), but rather the theory of the productive class (those who make their living through work and voluntary exchange and cooperation) versus the political class (those who siphon off as much of that productive activity as they can get away with, using the coercive apparatus of the state, for their own ends).
For these reasons, the first phase of my campaign will largely be internal to the parties and the movement; as we move on, it will become more outwardly focused, of course, but first things first.
My fundamental goal in seeking the nominations of the LP and the BTP is not to achieve those nominations or to be elected President of the United States. It is to help the libertarian movement outfit itself for a journey yet to begin -- a journey which that movement has stood stock still at the starting point of for nearly four decades now. If I achieve that goal, the nominations and the election results are of secondary importance, as I'm certain others are at least as qualified as I am to march at the front of the column. If I do not achieve those goals, then the nominations and the election results will resemble John Nance Garner's description of the importance of the Vice Presidency of the United States: "Not worth a bucket of warm spit."
I look forward to an exciting campaign, and I humbly request the support of all who value the future of freedom.
Yours in liberty,
Thomas L. Knapp
Knapp2012.Com
I initially planned to announce my 2012 candidacy for the presidency of the United States on April 6th, 2009, from the steps of the Old St. Louis Courthouse (history buffs shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out why), and I still intend to conduct a campaign event of some kind at that time and in that place.
I see, however, that others are already lining up with formal announcements or at least clear indications of their own intent ... and when a fight's brewing, I prefer to get in early.
It is therefore my distinct pleasure to announce that I will seek the 2012 presidential nominations of the Libertarian Party and the Boston Tea Party.
Why run for president -- and why, especially, for the presidential nominations of two parties which together usually account for less than one percent of the popular vote in presidential elections?
I could give you lots of reasons, but I'm going to stick with three for the moment: There are some hard truths that need to be told, I'm interested in telling them, and they're most effectively told from a bully pulpit.
Among those those hard truths are that the political wing of the libertarian movement will never make substantial progress toward its goals so long as it clings to the apron strings of the failed movements and parties of the past, remains in orbit around the present political "center," or falls prey to cargo-cultish notions of what constitutes "serious" politics.
If we want a libertarian future, we must create that future, not hope that our political opponents drag us along to it. They won't. They're not going in the direction we want to go in, they have no desire to go in the direction we want to go in, and to the extent that they're interested in us at all, they regard us either as fuel to be consumed or ballast to be dumped overboard at the earliest opportunity. I don't blame them. We haven't yet given them reason to regard us as a true threat to their power. It's time to change that.
As my friend and mentor L. Neil Smith once observed, "great men don't move to the center, they move the center." It's a big center, folks. Moving it will require a long lever, with us at the far end. I don't claim to be a great man ... but I hope to be part of a great movement, and to help that movement get further out on the lever and put some weight on it.
Insofar as cargo-cultism and "seriousness" are concerned, rest assured that I have nothing against suits and ties, friendly media interviews and the other requirements of realpolitick. What I do oppose is the absurd notion that waving around "mainstreamism" like some kind of voodoo fetish will magically boost us to competitive stature versus our older, more established opponents. It won't.
The future of the libertarian movement, if it is has one, requires a principled populist approach rooted in class theory. Not the theory of the socialists (labor versus capital) or of the liberals and conservatives (ad hoc identity politics adjusted to appeal to society's phobias du jour), but rather the theory of the productive class (those who make their living through work and voluntary exchange and cooperation) versus the political class (those who siphon off as much of that productive activity as they can get away with, using the coercive apparatus of the state, for their own ends).
For these reasons, the first phase of my campaign will largely be internal to the parties and the movement; as we move on, it will become more outwardly focused, of course, but first things first.
My fundamental goal in seeking the nominations of the LP and the BTP is not to achieve those nominations or to be elected President of the United States. It is to help the libertarian movement outfit itself for a journey yet to begin -- a journey which that movement has stood stock still at the starting point of for nearly four decades now. If I achieve that goal, the nominations and the election results are of secondary importance, as I'm certain others are at least as qualified as I am to march at the front of the column. If I do not achieve those goals, then the nominations and the election results will resemble John Nance Garner's description of the importance of the Vice Presidency of the United States: "Not worth a bucket of warm spit."
I look forward to an exciting campaign, and I humbly request the support of all who value the future of freedom.
Yours in liberty,
Thomas L. Knapp
Knapp2012.Com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)