Today’s my birthday. Even worse, it’s Tax Day. I’ve always hated that. As I tweeted just a little while ago, if one more person says to me, “Oh, you’re a tax baby!” I’m gonna slug ‘em!
I want to keep my money
And give away absolutely nothing
To the government who moderates my spending
and obliterates depending on what time of the year
brutality is near
in the form of income tax
I’d rather take a fucking ax
to my face, blow up this place
with you all in it, I’d do it in a minute
If I could write off your murder
I’d save all of my receipts
because I’d rather you be dead
than lose a tiny shred of what I made this fiscal year
I’d rather you be dead than ponder parting with my second home
I’d rather you be dead than consider not opening a restaurant
I’d rather you be dead
I’d rather you be dead
Prepare the laser-beam
I’m gonna use it tonight
Engage the laser-beam
It’s gonna end your life
I’m gonna use it tonight
If I could write off your murder
I’d save all of my receipts
because I’d rather you be dead
than lose a tiny shred of what I made this fiscal year
I’d rather you be dead than ponder parting with my second home
I’d rather you be dead than consider not opening a restaurant.
Big thanks to Beth for the reminder. I love love *LOVE* Metalocalypse!
There’s treatments for all kinds of mental/physical ailments nowadays, from acne treatments to organ transplants. Why isn’t there a stupidity cream out yet!?? ;P
As I indicated in a previous post, it really burns my hide to see senior citizens get taken advantage of. A friend of mine who works in the insurance industry in Georgia sent me a link from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with an article about a shady insurance agent who swindled some folks out of their Medicare coverage and/or Medicare supplemental coverage:
The sales agent said he worked for Medicare. He really worked for a private insurer. And, after he came to Dorothy Consalvo’s Stockbridge home and signed her to a new insurance plan, one she thought would enhance her existing benefits, the 81-year-old said she was shocked to find she had inadvertently given up her longtime Medicare coverage.
Up the road in Norcross, another agent talked Violet and Carroll Cox into signing up for a private Medicare plan at the low cost of $7 a month. They say they were told it would give them the same coverage as their supplemental insurance. It didn’t. “This agent lied all the way,” Violet Cox contends.
It’s a crying shame! If you have loved ones who are “a little on in years,” I would suggest keeping a printout tucked away somewhere with their coverage plan details and any uncovered or out-of-pocket expenses (if any) listed. Most insurance companies have this information accessible via a website, or a quick call. Handy information to have, not just in times of (medical) need …
She’ll probably want to smack me for calling her that.
As someone who’s been victim to identity theft, my heart goes out to Raven and her family. She recently posted about her family’s findings about her grandfather (now deceased) who was being abused by his caretaker. That in itself is heinous, but to add insult to injury, his caretaker had also stolen his identity and depleted his savings, writing checks and using his credit cards. Reading her story infuriated me, not only bringing back my personal memories dealing with FuckHead, but also in thinking about how I would feel if my beloved Gramps had been treated that way by one of his caretakers.
An open call for help
Those who have been keeping up with this journal over the past week or so are already familiar with the situation I am in, for the most part. For anyone else, here is an overview. I did not put in a cut, as I really need everyone to see this.
My grandfather died at the age of 94 about 8 days ago. This followed an emergency trip to the hospital, where it was found that he had bled out through an intestinal tear. My parents decided to put him in hospice care rather than subject him to radical or invasive procedures, which was in accordance with his wishes. He died about 18 hours later.
At this point my parents started trying to put his affairs in order. As they filled out the death certificate, a nurse took my mother and her sister, my aunt, aside to tell them that she believed my grandfather had been severely abused by his caretaker, and if they had been able to save him, she would have personally intervened to keep him from being sent back to his caretaker to spare him a great deal of pain. He had bruises in several stages of healing all over his body, and possibly worse injuries as well.
The hospital records, over 100 pages corroborated this abuse pattern over the past few years. However, Texas, the state where he resides does not have a mandatory abuse reporting policy apparently, so no one bothered to report it to adult protective services. Then, as my mother tried to continue putting his affairs in order, she was stunned to realize that this same caretaker had used my grandfather’s credit cards to make purchases and drained his entire life savings to the point where he did not even have any money to live on. Even two days after his death, this woman was still writing checks in his name, obvious forgeries of his signature on each.
This explained to us several references in his letters about being tired of living and wishing God would take him away from his pain. None of us knew this was going on, and apparently even my grandfather’s financial advisors noticed the pattern but did not see fit to notify the rest of the family for whatever reason.
My family contacted the Lubbock, Texas police and were told flatly that they refused to get involved at all and would not pursue the case or try and find the caretaker. They contacted adult protective services and found out that the police should have suggested an autopsy to prove abuse, but it was too late as my grandfather had been cremated. Apparently they can only intervene if there is a live person to question or an intact body. The attorney they found also basically told my mother that this was not a winnable case. After contacting the credit card companies about the theft of my grandfather’s identities, one company told my mother that they too refused to get involved at all.
At this point, we just want to see the caretaker prosecuted for her fraud, have the bills in my grandfather’s name cleared and make sure the woman does not do this to anyone else’s loved ones. The money, my grandfather’s savings that he had been building since just after the Depression, when he first started building his accounting firm is probably not retrievable, though it would be wonderful if it was.
This is an open request for help from me and my family. If you have any suggestions at all of how we can at least get someone to help us on this, we would be very grateful. Please re-post this to lists and pass it along, as any help at this point would be welcome. We are drowning in bills that were run up by this caretaker, and the police, lawyers, and credit company will not help us. The only people who have aided us are the hospital staff, who have come forward with statements. However, this does not really help since the police will not listen and my family does not know where else to turn.
I can’t pretend to know how Raven is feeling. I know it has got to be frustrating as hell when local authorities, credit companies, and legal venues are not helping in even pursuing possible prosecution of the caretaker! That woman took the old man for everything he had (and physically abused him on top of that!!) and left a mountain of bills in her financially destructive wake for the family to sort out.
There are a lot of things I wanted to cover today, unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish this post prior to class this afternoon, so bear with me … there’s a lot here.
Those of you who are local I’m sure have been following the story of the busload of Marines that overturned Sunday. They were from E Co., Anti-Terrorism Battalion, 4th Marine Division, returning from a weekend training exercise. I read this morning about Lance Cpl. David Miles, the Marine that passed away Monday afternoon from his injuries. However, even in death he still served others.
“According to his mom, he was very adamant about (donating) his organs … so the mom is very adamant about carrying out his wishes of harvesting as many of his organs as possible.”
Honestly the grace and bravery that our finest men and women exhibit every day never cease to amaze me. Too bad the liberal media doesn’t show them more often!
Verizon Cancels Returning Marines’ Cellphones, Gives Their Number Away, Charges Them $500
Two Marines, a husband and wife, found Verizon had an unpleasant welcome-home gift waiting for them when they got back from serving in Iraq: canceled cellphones, a $500bill, and their phone numbers were given to other people. Under the Service Members Civil Relief Act, when a soldier goes off to war, they’re able to send their deployment letters to their service companies and get their service put on hold. Apparently in the case of Haley Katz and her husband, that letter wasn’t good enough. When they complained and reached a manager, the manager told them ” it was their fault they owed the money”, and then hung up on them. Read their letter as published in Stars and Stripes, inside…
At 3:30 a.m (Iraq time), [recently], my husband and I called Verizon Wireless to reactivate our phones, as we are returning home [from Iraq] soon and wanted to catch the company during its business hours. Upon speaking with a customer service representative, it became apparent that Verizon not only suspended our contracts, it disconnected our phones and gave our numbers away to other customers.
What is truly amazing is that the company took the letters our commanding officers signed regarding our deployment dates, and deemed the letters not worthy of suspending our contracts. It continued to charge us for those months without notifying us and when we did not pay, it disconnected the lines.
Long story short, when we called to reactivate our phones they told us our numbers no longer existed and that we owed them nearly $500!
When we asked to speak to a manager, we were told nothing could be done. When we did actually speak to a manager we were told it was our fault that we owed the money. The manager then proceeded to say “We’re sorry but nothing can be done for you. Goodbye.”
We were hung up on … in Iraq … at 3:30 in the morning. Real professional.
We spoke to another manager who was courteous enough to recredit our accounts and cut all remaining ties with their service. We are no longer with Verizon Wireless.
For all of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen out there, make sure you are checking up on the status of your accounts. Apparently, a letter from your command stating you are deploying is not enough these days. And aside from seeing service members off at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point (N.C.), I am not sure what else they are looking for.
Marine 2nd Lt. Haley Katz
Camp Fallujah, Iraq
I’ve heard horror stories about Verizon and their crappy customer service for years, but this takes the cake!
And speaking of human depravity, there’s the Berkley protesters. We’ve all heard of this one, right? Today, Rachel Lucas gave plenty examples of and commented on the ‘fine minds’ (and I say that lightly!) objecting to our nation’s finest.
Somebody please put these morons out of our misery!
WTF?!!? Were they high? Did they seriously think this was a good idea?
And last but not least, a funny bit courtesy of 
