HOWTO: Mind Control Customer Service Reps

Reader Lona says that people in her family have called her a consumer advocate since she was sixteen, and now she is going to share with us 2,177 words on the customer service tactics and techniques she uses to get satisfaction. She writes, “in 99% of situations, it allows you to reach an agreeable solution [...]

Israeli PM Olmert tells Bush: “No Peace Without Gaza”

George W. Bush is in Israel for his first-ever presidential visit to the Middle-East. Cast by his own hand in the role of the peace maker, he arrived insisting there was a real opportunity for progress.
But it has been two months since Annapolis, and there’s been precious little agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis [...]

Pentagon: US-Iran Warboat Encounter Could Be Fake

The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon’s video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself.
Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with [...]

US to Send 3,000 More Marines to Afganistan

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military [...]

$200 a Barrel of Oil – Oil Futures Trading Predicts

Some news items deserve a polar response. Like this one, which might well be sub-titled “the green side of greed and market uncertainty.”
Options to buy oil for $200 on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 10-fold in the past two months to 5,533 contracts, a record increase for any similar period. The contracts, the [...]