- Are
you self-employed, and purchase your own health insurance. Congress
is at it again, with insurance industry influenced legislation to
trump and undue a decade of state legislation that protects private
policy holders. More than 40 states attorney's oppose this legislation.
See
this May 5, 2006 story by NOW's David Brancaccio, and for Christ's
sake, be careful out there. While you
are there, check
out this story about oil and its recent price rise, and do not
let the right wing spin doctors dupe you into blaming the tree huggers,
and be careful out there.
- Beyond
the centuries old battle of religion and science that continues
unabated are real issues regarding the relationship between a culture's
religion, morality and humanism. Without preamble to bias your reaction,
I double dog dare you to examine and ponder this astonishing raw
data (uncorrupted by epidemiological voodoo mathematical correlations)
compiled by Gregory Paul in a paper published in the Journal of
Religion and Society titled: Cross-National
Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity
and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies. Whether there
is or is nor a God (or whether said God or equivalent higher power
actually did change radioactive decay constants to dupe the faithless,
secular sinners into thinking the earth is no more than 10,000 years
old), somehow, I do not think this is what Jesus had in
mind, so be careful out there.
- Our
Internet expert tells us that past will be prologue with
respect to computer viruses, phishing attacks, and unwanted e-mail,
i.e., spam will continue unabated on the Internet. Data from monitoring
companies indicate that some 2.5% of inbound e-mail contains viruses,
some fairly benign, but others pretty malevolent. There is also
a prediction that spammers will alter tactics to include more images
and other graphics in their messages, in an effort to circumvent
spam filters that are trained to watch for certain text keywords
(e.g., free). Keep your virus protection software current, and be
careful out there.
- Beware
Alexa: Our expert also says that the search engine known
as ALEXA toolbar is, in fact, (or perhaps in fect) a Trojan virus
that will plant nasty things deep in your Windows operating system
registry. So long as you feed data to this spy ware system, everything
will be OK. But, try to remove the Alexa toolbar and the virus awakens,
ultimately requiring hard drive reformat, and re-installation of
all software. Alexa belongs to Amazon – shame on them –
who can you trust these days? -- Be careful out there.
- Identity
theft has become a prodigious and ubiquitous problem in
the new millennium. The advice below was circulating in e-mail on
the Internet, labeled as free advice from an attorney. It seems
to me to be sound advice to follow in order to be
careful out there:
1.
The next time you order checks have only your initials (instead
of first name) and last name put on them. If someone takes your
checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with just
your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how
you sign your checks.
2. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO
ID REQUIRED".
3. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts,
DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For"
line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card
company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be
handling your check as it passes through all the check processing
channels won't have access to it.
4. Put your work phone number on your checks instead of your
home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home
address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address.
Never have your SS# printed on your checks. You can add it if
it is necessary. But if you have it printed, anyone can get
it.
5.
Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do
both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know
what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and
phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe
place. I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel
either here or abroad. We've all heard horror stories about
fraud that's committed on us in stealing a name, address, Social
Security number, credit cards.
Should
you lose your wallet:
1.
We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately.
But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers
handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find
them.
2.
File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your
credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers
you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation
(if there ever is one).
But
here's what is perhaps most important of all
: (I never even thought to do this.) --
3.
Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately
to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number.
I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that
called to tell me an application for credit was made over the
Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks
your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have
to contact you by phone to authorize new credit.
By
the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the
theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all
the credit checks initiated by the thieves' purchases, none
of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then,
no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my
wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in). It seems to
have stopped them dead in their tracks.
Now,
here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet,
etc., has been stolen:
1.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271
2.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 3.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
4.) Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289
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