Score of good reasons Not to buy a home in-San Jose- Silcon Valley, California

1-Ground water pollution,,,Santa Clara County and San Jose are in Silicon Valley which has the greatest concentration of Superfund sites in the entire USA, including Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Like any naught infantile industry, the computer industry started here in what Was a very high quality of life area,,,and then fouled their nests ,,,and walked away from their serious toxic waste leavings. Originally they used more toxic chemicals and bad decision decided to bury these tanks underground, which then leaked into the ground water. It would be ethical and responsible of the pc-computer industry to gather together and pay to clean up this huge mess, instead of acting like spoiled brat children that demand tax breaks and leave their messes all over the house for some else to clean up!

2-Air pollution,,,Since the South Bay Area is rimmed by low mountains like the Los Angeles area, we nowadays -2007- have smog so bad it is a green layer on top of a brown layer, besides the newsreaders telling us to stay inside. Local people seem to be too busy working and just don't give a damn.

3-Historic pollution,,,There are Spanish, Almaden neighborhood 'quicksilver' mercury mines in Silicon Valley that have been leaking into San Francisco Bay since the 1700s and no one seems to want to do anything about it. That includes our cardboard-like ineffective new Governor, the Terminator-Governator who is chained to a totally incompetent state highway department, Caltrans, full of $Billion cost overrun civil servants who should all be fired and have their pensions stripped; A Terminator-Governator defeated by puny civil servants, red ink, and potholes,what a sorry sad movie that is.

4-Incompetent,Deaf and Ineffective government,,,San Jose's last mayor,Gonzales of Sunnyvale politics, belongs in jail for his bid rigging and general incompetence. How the local political machine thought he even had a cardboard prop chance like Gavin 'prettyboy' Newsom of surviving the status quo long enough for one term is amazing. The new current mayor, Mr. Reed ,promises a huge turn to honest government with a start on a Sunshine Commission, but San Jose and California have not seen much political sunshine in so long because of the corporate-political 'fog' it is going to be an enormous task. The state is gerrymandered to the limit and you can not get rid of some of the old rust like Lantos because neither party will put up a range of good candidates for the PUBLIC to choose from!!

5-Bad community design,,,A long string on San Jose and Silicon Valley mayor seem to have sold their souls and the area to suburban housing tract developers, so that getting around as most of us do by car is very very difficult. For instance, major highways 85 and 87 were on the county map for 30 years as "proposed routes" and much needed with all the yuppies and geeks and stock millionaires driving fast , but were not built. And when built , the State of California-Caltrans accepted a defective highway 87 that warped like a roller coaster, and had to be rebuilt and widened from a totally inadequate 2x2 new ,21st century ,7 million people in the Bay Areas 9 counties so almost as crowded as LA, too narrow freeway. There is not one LA super wide freeway in the entire Bay Area. Talk about lousy, lack of foresight planning!! Even on major streets and cross town boulevards, the Traffic Department says that all the traffic lights are suppose to be, should already be,should have been for years and decades timed,,,but they are too busy or incompetent to do it just yet,,,what with how valuable our time, gasoline, and sitting in traffic for hours smog-generating health is. Highway 101 south of town was Designed with a huge bottleneck to slow traffic in and out of southern Coyote Valley, and the stupid bottleneck has only recently been removed , at the cost of incompetent State Legislature millions $$$$$. Silicon Valley is no pre-designed Pleasanton.

6-Poor Police performance,,,In the 1960s and 1970s the SJPD cops in their cruisers were allowed to sleep their night shifts away on the safer west side of the Santa Clara Valley, in clusters of cruisers hidden behind schools-which i personally witnessed-while most of the crime was newspapered to be on the poorer east side of the Valley. But i can remember the west side, Willow Glen burglar who repeatedly broke into peoples upper income homes to just make loud noises and stand in the master bedrooms while the couple cringed for their lives hiding under the sheets, and then this burglar would leave. This went on ,,,for years!!! If you call the SJPD for say carpenters drag racing down an upscale expensive neighborhood ,,,every day after work on a remodel,,,you might think the local pd would come out,,,but no, the cruisercops are too busy somewhere, doing something, and making some of the highest pay in the state for doing a terrible job of community policing. Or say the local high school kids decide to tp/toilet paper a city sidewalk, city owned beautiful tree every year, will the local pd talk to these budding jd s and put a stop to it, no. You can get better service from a mall guard.

7-Redevelopment Agency corruption to totally rebuild downtown San Jose after the city allowed "Valley Fair" shopping mall to be constructed on the western outskirts and draining all the business out of the downtown area, taken over by various Mexican eastside gangs, and now trying to entice shoppers and visitors back with free parking on nights and weekends,,,was another huge bad idea. Nowadays this shopping mall is the number one grossing mall in the state, more than any in LA or Orange County. People do not still feel safe because there is not a cop walking every block downtown at night--see the above "poor police performance". Women have been raped, downtown, at night , on the city streets. And the city and the SJPD cops still don't get it.

8-Secret, backroom giveaway deals to local corporations costing us $$$ millions and billions in lost tax revenue and fees,etc. Some would say that Silicon Valley must do this to entice good companies to come and stay, but after so many have poisoned our wells like Fairchild and IBM, do we really still think this corporate morally corrupt scheme still works for the benefit of anyone but these careless multinational nation-homeless businesses?! If a business does not want to be American, then they may not be our friend, but our enemy.

9-Joke of a city council,,,Like most politicians-representatives in California and the USA, San Jose's in Silicon Valley can not be bothered with your complaint call or inquiry. PS=this city does not work. period.

10-local newspaper,,,I will give the San Jose Mercury News credit for only recently trying to be a great investigative, honest,for the people newspaper instead of the corp and govt shallow he said/she said trashcan liner material that is the bulk of most newspapers.

11-Local Schools,,,San Jose State College was, besides the old canneries for the fruit trees of old Santa Clara Valley, the mainstay of the community. Unfortunately, through poor-terrible administration by the State , it was allowed to become more mediocre while changing its name to 'san jose state university' when it is functionally no better than a second tier state college to the UC system-also mismanaged by slow expansion. SJSC was always a commuter school , in downtown, so it easily lost its identity. What with the foolishness of the greeks frats and soros,keeping files of tests, and way too many drunken orgies causing their decline to almost barely visible level,,,and the repeated poor leadership of college president after college president after college president, especially with the long line of corrupt and incompetent mayors not helping matters generally much, the college is a local joke. They just gutted the famous Industrial Arts department , where shop teachers learned their skills for decades under master craftsmen, and gave it too the famous Engineering Department, as if !! we need more geeks that can not even use hand tools, let alone machinery. Ask any major local corporation,even the computer kind, and they will tell you most EE grads are tool klutzes and the Governator needs to restore public education in the State of California to a much higher level , if he can, tho doubtful. Our public schools are rated near the bottom on spending per pupil, tho the public school administrators are stealing golden salaries just fine tyvm,,,and the overall quality of our high school public education graduation crop is a joke compared to the rest of the USA and the civilized world. Stanford's computer was tapped and the newspapers revealed that most students were (parentals) buying just "A"s and "B"s, tho the university does not seem to be too ashamed about this, they just don't want to talk about grades anymore, with anyone,,,especially the press. And UCB /Bezerkley ,like San Jose State, does not seem to be able to be good neighbors and good friends to the city it is downtown inside. Santa Clara University has become famous for ,,,ready for this,,,burning couches in the streets, by the students. Such incompetent State level public school leadership, for decades!! Both Chico State and CalPoly in SLO lost their parent week celebrations because of inadequate policing,,,so sad. The new Merced UC campus is mired in frivolous swampshrimp lawsuits and should have been finished 20 years ago. Willow Glen High School is over run with rude and misbehaving, mostly latino, underachieving and bussed-in students.

12-Worst roads in the USA, for YEARS,,,If California was an independent country, we would be one of the 15 richest countries in the entire world !, yet the state budget is secretly lack-of-political sunshine mismanaged year after year, after decade. The Terminator-Governator in a campaign pledge promised we californians a state audit,,,but we have learned to accept much less from a Hollywood movie star-action figure,,,so much much less. We use to just joke about how awful the state DMV/dept of motor vehicles was. Now it is also the state CalTrans/highway department, for their bungling of the Bay Bridge 1989 repair when it was built on wood in the water and mud back in 1936 and the wood had rotted away,,,to their bungling of the new bridge design and build process from a reasonable 1 billion $ cost est. to the current afraid-to-ask-negligence-over 7 billion $ and years late estimate,,,California has become a joke of mismanagement by the Gov. and Legis. after their repeated lies that deregulating energy would mean the cost of natural gas and electricity would go down, when it shot up 4xs, and they made an Enron ripping us off movie about it. There were 15 other stupid states lined up to deregulate, so we were not the only state ship of fools and fooled !! So our city roads and highways and freeways are just covered with potholes and big hard hitting cracks, and some rate our roads the worst or among the very worst in the entire USA. I just paid several hundred dollars in wheel alignment car charges because the all the roads, but in the richest neighborhoods like Hillsborough, are so poorly maintained. Maybe that is why the Governator drives so many suvs-Hummers.

13-Housing prices, own or rent, that will make you laugh or cry, guaranteed,,,What with all these obvious, plain as day problems, you might think you could get a bargain on housing in Sillycone Valley, but you would be so wrong. Low income housing looks like a barrio or ghetto. And anything remotely livable costs you an arm and a leg, ala get off the boat in SF rip off merchant pricing in the 'gold rush',sucker rush of Sam Brannan and manifest destiny. I live in a steal of a 2 bdrm rental, with parking safely off street, and a 3rd floor view,,,but rents on the peninsula in my area go normally for $2k/mo for such an old building. Check CraigsList to be truly shocked. My folks built a custom, not tract home in desirable Willow Glen-Lincoln Glen neighborhood(since LG shopping street heart/center is near d-e-a-d,,,) in 1853 for less than $20k. Ranch style one level ,2 car attached garage, 3bdrm, 2bath. Big lot. Now expanded ,twice, to 5bdrm, 2 bath. And it could sell, 1953 old pipes and old wires and old paint as is ,,,for,,,are you sitting down?,,,over $700k. The wires on the original electric stove top--remember "all electric" ads for homes-what a joke--are sooo scary.

14-horrible State Bond rating,,,who really cares how badly our state is mis-run.

15-lots and lots of 'homeless' people wandering around and getting into trouble,,,It is not just generous SF that use to give away cash of $300-400/mo to anyone claiming at the city window to be homeless. There use to be a mental health hospital , called Agnews, for the thousands of mentally ill in Silicon Valley. But during Governor Reagan's term, the state mental hospital of Agnews was closed and now the land has been sold off to Sum Microsustems or somebody, when it was a good place to keep the mentally ill off the streets and from getting into criminal behavior ,drugs,littering our sidewalks, etc. That was a huge bad idea, Governor Reagan. Sonoma mental hospital, huge, in the north bay was also closed.

16- call "911" and see if you can wait for 1,5 or 30 minutes,,,On the highway i see lots of accidents, some just fender-benders, some with blood, and it is amazing to me that CHP hangs up on you in SoCal if you call an accident in and it sometimes takes 5-10-15-30 minutes in NorCal to get through to a polite CHP dispatcher, to HELP THEM get info on a recent accident and get out there to help the accident victims.

17-Water rates are sky high,,,My folks in San Jose pay from $50-75/month, as 2 residents with one or two kids visiting. Ridiculous !! Of course, the corporate farmers get 60-70% of the states fresh drinking water right off the top, before the what 30 million people and cities, at a giveaway rate subsidy of less than $20 a acre foot. Only in California, right !! And the water is sooo hard, you are going to get hard water white spots all over that new BMW. You would think someone would develop a product to apply to new glass to protect it for years from such ugly and hard to see through white hard water spots. And most of the county is on an antiquated=cheap many old ground well system, so the Water Company is making huge profits, but the quality of the "hard 24 gpg" ,toxic (see #1 above) water is not to be trusted or preferred. The County does not work either,,,and wants fiasco of incompetence and failure at only 60-70 mph B.A.R.T. into downtown SJ, for "whatever!" the cost. (Caltrain is such a far superior system going up the peninsula, that BART would be a total waste of Billion$ of past collected tax dollars.)

18-horrible Clay soil,,,it may have been fine for building adobes by the Spanish that have lasted hundreds of years, but try gardening in this sticky muck !! Yes, it was fine for all the old orchards of plums, walnuts, apricots and cherries, but i personally have spent $1000s over the years on cubic yards of mushroom compost,gypsum, redwood shredded bark compost, manure, both steer and chicken composted, planting mix , Schultz Profile Clay Soil Conditioner grit, and now alfalfa pellets that really temporarily increase the worm population, and since 1953 to 2007 the clay soil still looks and hoe /shovel works the same,,,sticky. Where all those thousands of cubic yards of garden soil amendments went over the many years, i have no idea, and neither does anyone else it seems.

19-Jobs,,,It use to be that every parents dream was for their son or daughter to get an EE degree and work for a computer company, make a good salary, buy a big house, and raise a family ala the old american dream. Maybe those days are gone ,since alot of Silicon Valley companies have moved out and there are other Sillycone Valley-clones in Utah, N. Carolina, etc. Maybe some companies like Apple still pay a true living wage with great benefits. And some companies like Google just vest shares so besides the fab salary and benes ,even the janitor is a multimillionaire. But for most of us , we feel betrayed with low pay and few benefits, maybe just horrible -will misdiagnose to avoid a operation cost under covered insurance-crappy Kaiser. The State of Califonia-ok, go ahead and laugh-does not widely and generally for all workers enforce the overtime laws and the work place safety laws, that is the ones they have not Grey Davis style sleazy stolen off the books with a back room commission. Raw sewage in dumped across employee parking lots, yes more than one location, and Cal OSHA tries and does look the other way ,as it runs downs storm drains into San Francisco Bay. That is why there was so little public shock and uproar over the recent container ship 58,000 gallon thick tanker oil spill , because most people don't care enough to vote for politicians who do care and do take care of the California environment. We are quickly becoming an area of the spoiled with special tax breaks rich bastards, declining to nothing middle class, and the others, the working poor who are abused by the rich and the powerful.

20-The future prospects,,,If the big bad fraud of a ass-grabbing Terminator-Governator will not raise taxes on those making over $1 million/year,,, even $10,000,000/year,,, or even $50,000,000/year,,,year after year!?,,, of such extreme affluence, then i think California is lost. We truly will become just like Mexico, rich selfish and happy vs the poor, with the ground poisoned by MTBE,etc. from a bad trade treaty like NAFTA, GATT, and WTOs with our better neighbor to the north ,Canada. Ripped off and ruined, oh so quickly.

Why do Travel Agents want to become Dinosaurs?

Today i saw a respected California travel agency agent about a trip,Hawaii condo and car, i had booked myself months ago and just needed a flight. "Why don't you cancel the condo and car and go for a package?",,,I got exactly where and what i wanted. "Well, at a month and a day before Dec 16 departure, you will be lucky to find anything for less than $800-900 for the rt flight!",,,please just look. "Ok, on Apollo ,see, there is only,,,yes, $900,,,oh, there is $800,,,that is probably the best you will do,,,oh, there is $700,,,now you can't expect any lower price this late than that!,,,ok, i have found you a $600 rt flight on United in less than 5 minutes for our $35 fee, and you certainly won't find anything lower,,,do you want me to book that,,,you really should."

Apollo is a mediocre search engine for travel-flight prices. The travel agent did not check even one airline website, when most people have heard that they have the best deals a lot of times. What about Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines or ATA or even United's own site after finding their fare on Apollo? How lazy can you be ??

Back in the 80s i was a travel agent for a subsidiary of Santana's Suntrips and went to a ripoff travel school in San Jose and also two community college campuses to learn Sabre and Apollo for little pay, no benefits, and much talked of but never went 'fam trips' , as a part time job to working as a hotel front desk manager at a successful Silicon Valley business hotel ,for low pay and no benefits. So i know alittle about the biz, just selling Hawaii vacations. And in this day and age, for a "professional" to not even check the major travel websites and airline websites is either playing to only the UberRich or just plain foolish. Most Americans want a bargain ,even if they are "late!" at a month and a day out.

A good friend has a 'bargain hunter' travel agent in Oxford, England on a stipend to CONSTANTLY look for the ski trip package bargains in France and Italy that he has requested. Every few weeks she calls and says " I found this great deal, a real bargain ! Are you interested in going ,,,(say) skiing next month in Italy?"

Why do we have so many lazy, over-priced, fast buck,get rich quick travel businesses ,,,and travel agents who think we are all just fat cat corporate travel suckers willing to pay any price ?! The dollar in your hand or your bank is worth less and less every day,,,and most travel agents think they are working just for one side of the fence, the fat cats.

I made the Apollo- United $600 reservation, but immediately went home and found on Aloha Airlines web page a lower price or $577 and then on Hawaiian Airlines website of only $469, without the $35 fee,,,and a savings of more than 20 PER CENT !! If i could do this as a pc amateur, certainly any self respecting Travel Agent could,,,or professionally should. Not all of us in the Bay Area are computer geeks and we expect more from Travel Agents, if they want to flourish.

the NRA has stopped the "Free Hunter" program, so do they give a damn at all about us blue collar hunters?

I recently--Nov 2007--phoned the Hunter Relations Department of the NRA and they LAUGHED,,, when i asked if the rich and well funded NRA could organize at cost or just above cost hunts , say for pheasants in South Dakota, for its members. They want our money, but other than fight legislative battles with fat cat lobbyists, what are they good for beyond the basic Right to Bear Arms,,,for the average member?? Hunting in on the decline and besides self protection and target shooting it is a main reason why i own a rifle and a shotgun. Seems awfully short sighted of the NRA to do so little to promote hunting and the people who treasure the wilderness, national forests, fields and out of doors in pursuit of legal game like pheasants, quail, ducks and geese,deer, etc. For most of us, commercial outfitters are too expensive and as out of state businesses, too untrustworthy and unreliable. So hunting is in a steady rapid decline,,,then what, NRA?

Kaiser P. medical insurer says "thrive",,,then why so little about helping our Immune System??!

If crappy Kaiser was even half-serious about patients that "thrive", they would be telling us all the ways we could help our Immune Systems and all the ways we should not be hurting our precious Immune Systems. But they are not.

The Yosemite National Park landslide on main access Highway 140 Fiasco

If NPS and the current concessionaire, Delaware North, can not effect a quick and effective cure , you can bet that if MCA of Los Angeles still had the park contract the road landslide would have already been fixed. I am not saying MCA was a good concessionaire in its short history in Yosemite National Park, just that what NPS and the Feds now say is impossible to quickly fix/repair with a original roadway shed is just a lack of will. If you doubt that MCA in its day had the raw clout, i can prove by giving one example.
In the 1970s and 1980s ,MCA of Los Angeles was so powerful that it ran YNP in fact. What MCA wanted, MCA got. It was just that capitalist -greed-religion simple. Raft rental at Camp Curry and the raft shuttle that made large profits? MCA easily got it , with its corporate size or Congress connections.
Does Delaware North get to do raft rental and raft shuttle? No, even tho many employees say it is a mafia invested or controlled company. Should a mafia company be in a national park? As long as the President keeps waving the "patriotic" flag and shouting "Iraq" to all the American patriotic fools that can not think past "weapons of mass destruction" and "ties to Al Queda" and ignore the obvious.
Another example is that MCA in its day was allowed to be so abusively powerful that it fully exercised an exclusive bus transportation contract inside YNP to the detriment of visitors from all over the world. Bus loads would show up at the 4 park entrances, then had to phone in a request for a bus to transport its passengers from the bus yard at Yosemite Village, and wait until one arrived in an hour ,or two, or longer. Bus guests were not allowed to make reservations so that an MCA buses would be waiting at the one of 4 park gates, but rather MCA made all these mass transit ,environmentally wiser guests wait ,,,and wait,,,and wait.
That is how powerful , for the worse, a large corporation like MCA was inside our Yosemite National Park for years, with Congress and the National Park Service looking the other way. And that is how NPS has no clout or will or true grit to fix such major problems in our national parks, such as Yosemite and the two year old ,long know and ignored rockslide on Highway 140 and the Merced River.

Mr. Robert Steel's of Treasury remarks today are pollyann-ish/disingenuous,,,

US Rep. Barney Franks committee hearing today questioned Mr. Robert Steel of the Treasury Department, who said that banks do not try to get people into foreclosure situations. Capitalist coldhearted reality unlikely, as for example Bank of America rewards its loan officers/staff for getting people to unwisely sign on for multiple loans, whether or not these people can really afford them. I have seen these reward trips in San Francisco at Christmas time, with the loan officers most successful at increased debt of individuals staying in luxury hotels and eating luxury meals , paid for as reward, by Bank of America.

DO NOT,,,switch to Microsoft's "Windows Live",,as it is full of BUGS !!

Remember, Microsoft has little or no customer service for free,,,therefore, it is October 2007 and way too early to switch to MSN Windows Live email , what with all the many major problems in it:

1. Can not print more than the first page of an email.

2. Click on an email, and another one from a different day
pops up !!

3. There is no permanent option to go back to the old,
more reliable email program...and you can not email
MSN ,the beast, to get normal free customer service
help.

4. There are other problems,,,such as white lines every inch or so THROUGH THE BLACK TEXT YOU TYPE,,, i am just too tired of Microsoft and their crappy products without lifetime free customer service to continue tonight,,,

Mr. Greenspan's bitter legacy : A.R.M.s/adjustable rate morgages, sold by smart rich bankers debt-greedy against dumber,less powerful unwise Americans

Can anyone imagine that someone as smart as Mr. Greenspan could not see the near-term and long term future peril of the folly of ARMs/adjustable rate mortgages sold to ambitious unwise working poor fools?

The banks certainly are smart and powerful and personal debt/foreclosure/repossession driven enough to have foreseen this and as the power player in this business contract, must bear the full cost of such overly ambitious greed. No federal bailout is warranted tho the Federal Reserve certainly looked the other way and allowed this major stupidity and huge threat to our weaken national economy. Another nation lesson to learn.

Governor Arnold and 911: Why do we have to wait 3-15 minutes for someone to answer?!

Try calling 911 the next time you see a highway car accident. No one will answer for usually a few minutes,,,to many minutes. Then they will politely take the information, unless it is SoCal and then they will just hang up, even if someone is bleeding to death on one of the many overcrowded 6x6 and 7x7 freeways down there.

Governor Arnold is responsible as the head of state government for this. Ok, so he won't raise taxes on the elite super-uber-rich making more than a Million $/year. But he should be fixing this. This is basic public safety.

To save a few bucks, why risk your loved ones life?!

There are several limo and bus companies that demand all or most drivers be available 24/7/365. And then ,because they are employees, order them to violate the federal DOT hour of work safety law hours, since the driver is the only one liable for the $700-900 fine by CHP,,,which by the way suggests a way to falsify your DOT logbook with 'standby time' as 'off duty time' when you are still on the clock. It is a national disgrace and probably nationwide.

Beware of "Boston Coach" limo ,as a subsidiary of Fidelity Investment Company, seems to offer high pay in exchange for working too many ,possibly unsafe hours without at least 8 hours sleep at home. How important is your loved one , versus a couple bucks ?? Why does "Virgin Limo" say they pay competitive region and industry wages and then pay so very little??

Beware of "Destination Systems" who has made millions demanding 'unrestricted hours' from its bus drivers for years without regular days off or vacation time,,, retired in luxury after such putting-the-public-in risky business,,, and is now getting back into such risky business.

There are many more, hiding out there,,,Do we really want to lower all our standards to Mexico's or China's ??!

Consumers, if you love someone, you should ask more questions of who they ride with, limo or bus company, so that they will return safe and sound home to you. You would think.

Here in the 'wild west', California has lots of false front companies,,,

"California Parlor Car Tours" in SF currently in 2007 does not have any buses or drivers, yet is selling on the web like it did, after a bad accident outside Yosemite last year on 120west. Very sad for such a once-famous company.

"Tower Tours" sold its bus operation out of SF to a Seattle-based company, "(some thing)-Western", yet is still using the old name, even tho the rich South Korean former owner is just doing hotel desk bookings. The gay new construction?-millionaire owner has the Tauck Tours contract, but seems to hire others companies rejects, like the latest one with a huge anti-social hair-trigger temper.

Grey Line , Coach USA, San Francisco Sightseeing,,,that company,,, has yet invented another name to market/hide behind, besides the old Franciscan,,,it may be "Coach America",,,Why so many names for the same mediocre-standard, money-grubbing , usually dented dusty dirty and late ,smoking driver huge bus company?

Consumers must ALWAYS ask,,,do you actually have a bus and a driver ,,,and do the tour ? What is your insurance and safety record? Do you guarantee ,in writing to me, that your drivers follow the letter and spirit of the federal DOT law on hours and state laws , so that ALL YOUR DRIVERS are guaranteed at least 9 hour off each 24 hours of work availability,,,,so that they AND WE,,,will be safe and not victims of the frenquent fall-asleep-at-the-wheel USA national syndrome?? Do you pay competitive wages to all your employees ,such as overtime and full benefits, or just non-competitive wages like $10/hr period??

Or are you just one of sooo many brokers and bookies ,passing yourself off as the actual operator, just to get a slice of the money, and then resell the ignorant client to ,,,any farmed out or subbed out second or third rate outfit??

AARP sells MEDIOCRITY, not the Superior products to the aged it should

Back about ten years ago ,when i turned 50, i immediately joined AARP, thinking it would be of some to great benefit. First i tried the hotel discounts and found them no better than AAA. Second, i went to my retirement plan specialist and asked him to evaluate the retirement savings plans and annuities offered through AARP, and i was shocked to hear that as an expert in the field for many years he found them all to be "mediocre at best" !! Why not 'Superior' ????

They should be offering our older citizens the best, not the average. So recently i tried their car insurance offered through the Hartford, and for the first time ever i feel i was low balled to get me to call the Hartford Insurance Company and then fraudulently told that "the quote had to be adjusted as usual" and higher !! Classic 'bait and switch' fraud.
Now some old folks might just roll over and take that higher ,too high, price. But i complained to AARP and was basically told that they don't care about such insurance quote abuse and non-competitive pricing to the USA seniors.

Shocking , i know. Don't accept mediocrity from AARP, or anyone else !! Demand better service and prices from such powerful and supposed friends of the aged. The California Insurance Commissioner is taking too long to seem interested.

Fire Fatso Firemen,,,and Smoking Sheriffs !!

Sept. 2007,,,I was driving in San Francisco yesterday, and saw a "morbidly obese" fireman in uniform !! How can we keep ,or why, such super-unfit public safety employees ?! Also saw a S.F. policeman smoking inside his patrol car, obviously on duty. Who is going to pay for his lung cancer and certain self-destructive illnesses down the line, but we abandoned taxpayers of the mid-low working income ??!!
They should all be fired, if it is so necessary to be fit to be hired as a policeman or fireman, then it should be the same high standard throughout their career, however short. There are lots of young fit men and women willing, ready and able to take their places. To he-ll with their unions on this public safety crisis issue. No excuses, ala the popular tv show "rescue me".

Sears recommend a plumbiing company in Califonia, but the hot water heater plumbers also STOLE the hot water copper pipe loop!!!

My folks are in their 80s and often victims of tradesmen. But to buy a hot water heater every 10-15 years from Sears and then have the Sears provided plumbing company install the hot water heater,,,and STEAL the copper pipe of the subfloor hot water loop that had reliably provided hot water on demand in less than 5 seconds that now takes almost 3 minutes,,,is scandalous ,especially when Sears keeps telling us 'we don't want to hear about it anymore' !!!

BEWARE of Sears , in California and especially Silicon Valley !!

Shame on San Francisco's hotel consierges !!

Many people on vacation, in a trusting mood, will be unfairly taken advantage of by many San Francisco concierges who secretly take a 30-40 % commission on every tour booking, and lord knows what else, as a stupid judge just ruled this secret behavior "legal". It may be "legal" to take more than one deserves, but to do it secretly, is totally dishonest and unprofessional. Concierges should now show a label as to who they are beholding to, either "salaried hotel employee" with obedience to the hotels standards if any, or "salaried and commission" or "commission to 40%" based advice, so that no one will be deceived any longer as to where the San Francisco concierges loyalty does lie, usually with the dirty under-the-table dollar, like lost child Las Vegas. Shame on the Mayor, Gavin Newsom, as well for his mismanagement of a tourism economy city. How difficult is it to get relief drivers to the ends of the cable car lines so our guest do not wait the usual 1-3 hours while the solo cable car driver is on a very very long break ?

Macys.com has lousy customer service !!

I ordered several items by pc at macys.com and was told they were all in stock and would be shipped within 5-7 workdays. The shipments were late and one item in on unknown date back order, when i was told over the phone that the product was "available to ship".

Beware of this big successful stores terrible performance on the web at customer service !! Macy's, you should be doing sooo much better at taking care of your customers.

USAToday newspaper prints BAD medical advice

Recently USAToday newspaper did an article on how to treat common native plant Poison Ivy-Oak-Sumac in the USA. They did this last year. Unfortunately, their source for medical advice is obviously incompetent,,,and thus you should view everything medical in this newspaper as highly suspect. They recommended treating the oily plant contact rash that lasts for a very painful, 24-7, two to three weeks with "alcohol and water" !! Totally incompetent advice in 2007 !!

"Tecnu" brand liquid soap is the only soap that will wash this painfully irritating oil off human or dog skin within the first 24 hours, that i am aware of. It has been available for about 10 years over the counter. Yet USAToday will let thousands and thousands of Americans and our visitor guests suffer with this unnecessary rash, especially if you get it on private,delicate or sensitive skin, every year because they for 2 years will not print up-to-date medical information on this subject, nor return phone calls on a correction to this bogus article. "Alcohol and water",,,what stupid irresponsible careless and thoughtless medical advice !!

Google is doing a TERRIBLE job of running Blogger !!

Now there is little or no way to contact Blogger, with calls for help or to report problems. This is wrong, and should not be allowed ,if there were ANY standard of customer service in the computer industry. Look how rich Google and Microsoft are ,,,and how Terrible/non-existent their "customer service" is !!

Talk about Robber Barons at the turn of the century.

For instance, i did not want nor need the new Google home page for Blogger or the new Google sign-in for Blogger. Blogger worked just fine. But they were force down my pc throat. Now when i try to switch between my own email addresses, Google offers it, but does not allow it !! Shame, shame , shame on you , Google !!

Professional mechanics and radio stars, "Click & Clack" say it is 'ok' to use Regular instead of "Premium Gas Only"

Good news,,,!!!
The famous radio personalities and mechanics "Click and Clack" last month, April 2007, say it is 'OK' for most cars other than Ferraris, Maseratis,etc. super high tech,,,to use Regular Gas, with the manufacturers like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Acura, Lexus, Infinity, and the second rate American mfgs, instead of the dash label of "Premium Gas Only" !! Thank you Tappet Brothers !!!!!

Now in the May -June issue, AAA says according to Jim Fennig a crew chief for NASCAR and AAA President Paula F. Downey, that if your car dash label says "Use Regular Gas" ,you don't have to use Premium Gas at $.20-.60 cents more. Gee, thanks for that big tip, AAA. Yikes, do they think we are all sheep for slaughter ?!

AIG,,,huge insurance-investment company but LOUSY service!!

I have had an IRA at AIG- Valic for years,,,and am amazed that they do not have a mailed out or online printable contribution form. Also , they do not tell you if you have over-contributed for the year ,,,and thus face IRS $$ penalties. Ouch. But they also do not bother in the least to tell you what you can contribute and if you have contributed enough for that tax year. Excuse me, but THAT is Lousy service!! Maybe they think all of us IRA and TSA investors are captive past, and thus ,,,captive present and future contribution investors only to AIG ! There must be many investment companies that appreciate and take better care of their 'showing the money' customers !!