Florida Gov. Charlie Crist officially left the Republican Party on Wednesday, the other shoe dropping when he changed his voter registration to “no party affiliation” to match his now independent U.S. Senate bid, which was made necessary by the prospect of being thrashed by challenger Mark Rubio, a Tea Party darling, in the G.O.P. Senate primary. But Christ, who at this moment leads his likely opponents for the open Senate seat in campaign funds, also announced that donors who contributed to his campaign thinking they were giving to a Republican are out of luck: he’s not returning the funds. Continue reading
“bait and switch”
Spam Ethics
I was not previously familiar with the extent of that scourge of all blogs, spam. Nor did I realize that deciding which comments qualified for instant deletion would involve an ethical balancing act, but it does, and I am getting the hang of it.
WordPress, thankfully, gives its blogs a program that flags the most obvious spam, fake, automatically generated comments that have nothing to do with the post they are attached to, entered only to get publicity for websites that are selling something. Sending out this junk is pretty sleazy: it aims to junk up a serious website with dishonest drivel and use it as an unwilling billboard, usually for less-than-admirable products and services. The worst ones try to waste my time as well, falsely “alerting me” that my blog doesn’t work with their browser or that my RSS feed is malfunctioning. This kind of spam never gets through the door. Continue reading
One More Reason to Distrust Banks
National Public Radio did a feature on foreclosure auctions, following one real estate investor as he sought a bargain at an auction in Boston. The auction held a surprise for the investor, the reporter, and me. After the young man who was being followed by the NPR correspondent won a lively bidding battle for a $300,000 house at the bargain price of $84,000, the bank refused to sell it to him. The reason: the auction was a “reserve” auction rather than an “absolute” auction, meaning that there was an unpublished price at which the bank would sell the property, but winning bids below that amount could be rejected. The investor was angry. The NPR reporter was confused.
The auction was rigged. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 