From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 11:08:35 +0800
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
Message-ID: <199712100319.VAA07236@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 20:22:01 -0500
> From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
> Subject: Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)

> Jim Choate wrote, strictly adhering to permissible topics here:
> 
> >You really should try to understand why you cow-tow to 'The Man'....
> 
> DPS sumbitch ran me down near DFW, me and my crap filled van, 
> my mangy hide and shaggy hair, my NY plates, my wildly dumped 
> substances, and sat behind for a few drags of AC in 100 degree heat, 
> miked in the number, adjusted his mirrors, tilted the vidcam skyward, 
> and climbed out, a big, very big widowmaker high on his fat ass, 
> hustled his privates, spat juice, and farted hard enough to quiver the 
> VW and me.
> 
> Where you heading son, what's the hurry, why you messing Texas
> highways with this garbage? Not on my watch, Yankee, let me see 
> paper on this wreck, the vehicle, you. What's that smell?
> 
> Anyway, 24 later, I got the rig back, trashed more so, not so different, 
> the lining had been long gone, so searching it was easy. What was 
> new were ten bullet holes penetrating side to side, .30 caliber I guess, 
> and a shotgunned rear window, inside out.

Why didn't you file against them? Texas judges don't take kindly to the DPS
pulling this sort of shit. I worked at UT-Austin from 1984 to 1990 for the
Physical Plant taking care of their nifty burglar alarm system (at the time
really cutting edge compared to the rest of the industry) and got to work 
with UTPD, which because it is a state school are really DPS officers -
unbeknownst to most folks, and find about half of them are real rednecks who
get away with this sort of shit because nobody ever files on them. Did you
know that if a DPS officer gets some number of complaints within a period
(used to be 3 within 30 days) they were removed from active duty pending a
review. It is even possible to have a officer fired if they recieve enough
complaints. Most cops only get 3-4 complaints a year. It is *critical* for
the system to work correctly that *every* infraction gets reported and if
appropriate to file charges. Even if you don't win the cop will lose, the 
complaints go on their permanent record and get evaluated yearly and have
a direct impact on their promotions and eligibility for other jobs.

My brother has a really cheeky way to deal with this sort of shit. Once it
is clear they are going to let him go he pulls some coin out of his pocket
and hands it to the officer telling them "Here you go, go buy a
personality."

My personal method is to hand them my drivers license (if I'm on a public
road and driving) and then refuse to answer any further questions. I usually
answer with something like "I'm sorry officer, I'm not required to talk to
you". My goal is to get the cop to either let me go right there or arrest me.
Either way I win. Usually the most they get from me is a shrug. So far it's
worked for me, never been arrested except one time when they had a computer
screw up on a 6 year old ticket. Got arrested, posted bond, showed up at the
hearing and requested to see the physical ticket. Charges were dropped because
not only could they not produce the ticket but they couldn't produce any other
evidence of the crime. My ace in the hole was that I still had the court
receipt where I paid the ticket, never had to use it.

> No ticket, no fine, just a reminder of highway justice, on the orderly
> property of the State of Texas, lawfully administered by cop, judge 
> and jury on the spot, for cost saving efficiency.

Only because you allowed it by not filing. I sympathize with your situation
but find your acceptance a little puzzling as well. By your inactivity you
are promoting such behaviour. Democracy doesn't work if you are complacent
or of a compromising nature. While it's true you might loose the fight, if
you don't even try its guaranteed you have no chance of winning.

A system works because the people refuse to allow it to fail. My personal
philosophy is that if people would stand up and shout more they would be
more immune to harrassment and other similar activities because it reduces
the payoff to such abusive activities. Shine a light on cockroaches and they
run for the dark. It's one of the reasons that I support this mailing list
even thought I disagree personaly with the vast majority of views expressed
by it. Should something happen to SSZ and by extension me, quite a few people
who know me personaly and professionaly will get more than a bit curious
after a couple of days of downtime if they don't hear from me. I further
advertise this because it makes shure that those who are intending to harass
me know that it is not an individual they are dealing with.

> BTW, any chance your recent system troubles are related to your
> threats to law and order? DPS got cooperative service interrupters?
> Administering info highway justice.

My phone service problems w/ SWBT are because they are known for being
incompetent. The problems that I have had with ISDN reliability are a known
problem to the ISP's and heavy ISDN users through-out Texas. The reason that
the ISDN folks and the POTS folks can't get their act together is that they
use the same cable sets but keep different books and operate as an
indipendant business division, one is residential and the other business.
There are limited numbers of pairs in the neighborhood (it's only about 100
years old) so what happens is the ISDN guy looks at the various pairs, his
records are out of date a week or more and as a result don't have the recent
cable changes from my most recent POTS service call and therefore those pairs
are listed as free so he uses them. This causes the POTS to fail, who comes out
and now his records are out of date and he sees the ISDN pairs as unused and
pulls them to fix the POTS. Round and round we go...

[one of my users thinks this is a big conspiracy on the part of SWBT, the
city, state, and federal agencies to put me out of business and shut me up.
Personaly, I can't imagine being that big a fish.]

Doesn't the fact that SWBT now has some say in Bell Atlantic and Bell South
just warn the cockles of your heart....;) [anyone know how a clam, cockle,
got involved in this saying?]

Don't know if it is really on topic but both Bell Atlantic and Bell South
use Tivoli to support their backbones and other services machines. There is
currently a big internal fight (as I understand it) because SWBT has bought
major stakes in both companies and SWBT wants them to use SWBT's custom
self-developed piece of shit (personal opinion here as a long time SWBT
customer, not indicative of either Tivoli or IBM's official or unofficial
views; I'm just a lowly Senior Engineer and they don't let techies like me
in on the political talks) network management software instead of using
ours.

I can say this, in the last 3 months since moving to this new house I have
had 8 trouble tickets. None have been repaired in less than 2 days and the
longest was like 6. Every time SWBT says it's my hardware, I swap out
routers or check my wiring, but it ends up being their problem. I've been
charged $30 for a onsite call that should have been paid by SWBT. I have
repeatedly been advised to invoke their Level 2 Protocol Analysis support at
$60/30 minutes and I have to pay the bill first and will only get
reimbursed *if* SWBT decides it really is their problem. When I talked to
them the other day I mentioned that I am thinking of getting the PUC
involved along with a lawyer. Their responce was, verbatim, "Sir, do
whatever you want to do." I gave them a couple of chances to make it right
and I warned them I would fight. I'm currently starting proceedings with PUC.

Did you know that if you are late on a SWBT bill one time your billing
period is reduced, your monthly payment goes up, and it does this for a year
following the occurance.

So I figure that if you think your phone service is bad now wait a year you
ain't seen nothing yet...


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