Congress seems to feel that the record number 82% of Americans who hate their guts is still Not Enough, so the House is proposing a sneaky little update to the ancient Communications Act of 1934 that would finally allow the Satanic cavalcade of political campaigns and action committees to launch their ritual election season ear-rape attacks on millions of mobile phone users with incessant demands for cash/help/sex. Currently the wicked lizard political solicitors are still limited to robo-calling the dwindling reserves of American land line numbers that sane people long ago abandoned specifically to avoid this kind of annoying bullshit. But not for long!
From Lifehacker:
The “Mobile Informational Call Act” is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 and will allow political organizations, committees, and action groups to contact you on your mobile phone. The new bill, if passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President, would allow political organizations to use automated dialers and robocall-systems to dial your cell phone and hand you off to a live person or play automated messages asking you to contribute to political campaigns or take surveys.
The result, should the bill pass and become law, is that you’ll be able to opt-out of specific campaigns and group calling lists, but political organizations that get your number through petitions, calling lists, or affiliated organizations will be able to call your mobile phone whenever they choose.
The bill would also permit mortgage collectors and every other godforsaken criminal banking entity to legally fill your head with brain tumors until you sob for mercy (seriously, read the list of their letters in support of this bill), so hooray! Everyone hurry up and enjoy your last unpolluted evening meal WHILE YOU STILL CAN (the next five minutes). [Lifehacker]
{ 192 comments }
Caller ID is your friend. So is turning it off. Yes, I know it limits the functionality of the cell, but we all knew this was going to happen. My answering machine at home is still one of my best friends. It has caller ID…plus it talks. It will tell me who's calling. If it's not a name I want to hear, I don't even get off the sofa.
How quintessentially American.
And don't you forget it mister!
Also don't forget that I'm a patriot…not a hateriot.
I am a patriot
I love my country
Because my country
Is all I know.
I'm not a hateriot
I love walking
Because a Rascal
Moves too slow.
I can't count how many times I've nearly been run down in the market by a power-mad scooter pilot. I've complained to management that they should be governed down to no more than a walking speed, to no avail.
I hit them with my cane as they speed by. Handicapped, eh? I'll give you something to be handicapped about!
I typically let my 4-year-old answer the phone in those cases. She gets to talk on the phone, which makes her happy, and the caller gets annoyed as fuck. Win-win!
I've had a cellphone for the past ten years. Only one person has the number. I only turn it on if I'm going to need to speak to that person. The rest of the time, it lives in a pocket of some jacket or the other. It's for emergencies only.
I feel sorry for those folks with kids. They're the ones that need their cellphones on pretty much 24/7, depending on how old their kids are. Hopefully, when they get pissed off enough to pick up their pitchforks, I'll make a killing selling those, and then march with them and impale a few lawmakers just because.
If it wasn't for the fact that my employer requires that I carry a cell (and pays for it), I wouldn't have one at all.
A man after my own heart. (And, like as not, my lungs and liver.)
Until they send Robocop to my house to make me answer the calls, fuck 'em.
Dead or alive, you're answering that phone for me.
Until they send Robocop to my house to make me answer the calls, fuck 'em
Whoa, there! Slow down, buddy. We're getting there…
Mine has an off button.
Breaking News!
Chris Christie jumps shark!
Atlantic Ocean floods Sahara.
I'd call to oppose it…
…but then they'd have my god damn number.
I'd suggest using a pay phone if those weren't extinct.
What is this "pay phone" of which you speak??
Yeah right, like you think they don't already have your number, heh heh.
I don't have a cell phone. I KNOW. I was thinking of getting one. This news just nixed that fucking idea.
I knew you were smart.
I also have no cell phone, and was thinking of getting one. (I finally got a car in 2008, when I was 48 years old.)
From now on, when I think of a technology purchase, I will ask myself, "What would freakishlywrong do?"
~
The irony is, sweet, delicious irony, I'm a tech, a geek. I just don't want to be consistently available. Or really, never available.
Same here. I own a old school flip phone. People ask why I don't own a Crackberry or Droid or some shit like that. I just tell them, maybe I know something that you don't and then enjoy the puzzled look on their face.
I'm a mom, and I don't want to be available, either.
My husband has all the relevant skills and gadgets if I need 'em, so I can remain a blissful Luddite.
(We have a land line, too. Cell reception here sucks because of all the NIMBYs.)
I have a sneaking feeling you're a neighbour of mine. I just wish I could figure out which one. (eyes street nervously)
My husband insisted that I have one so that he can call me at the grocery store and ask me to get prune juice and Depends. When I'm at the store I keep wondering why I keep hearing "Night On Bald Mountain". When I get home he is all pissed off because I didn't answer. For this we pay $72 a month to Credo.
Yeah, how did people go shopping before cell phones?
Years ago, my daughter programmed my phone to ring with most obnoxious, "bow-chicka-bow-bow" tone she could find, (knowing full well that I could never figure out how to change it). A few days ago it rang and she asked me why I had such a stupid ring-tone!
So am I. I knew if I gave the office the number, they would be calling me at ungodly fucking hours to complain or whine, so I just denied ever having the fucking thing. I don't have kids, so I don't *need* to turn it on.
I am one of the last in my known-and-barely-acquainted circle with a land line — a few other diehards only let theirs go this past year or so — and I'd love to lose mine too for savings' sake but, instead keep losing my dingy little tracPhone so often that at least w/ the first gizmo I'm paying for the assurance of knowing where it's 'anchored', right?
I look at my circle, all answering their phones in the middle of their own sentences, furiously texting and just think: "there is no part of me that wants that awful shit".
… when the earthquake rattled RVA here.. stepped outside amid other downtown-located worker bees.. a few were looking up at buildings (or at 'the sky'?) but most were texting/ dialing/ absorbed in their devices, self-sabotaging what should have been a real experienced moment, such that when confronted with it, one no longer knows how to handle it without plugging into something… And at home: the dog-walking neighbors, some of whom we used to be on first-name &/or hand-wave terms: now all making an endless cell-chat stream while people along their path in their actual presence become just background noise.
Like ProudLibunatic, I have a landline because reception in my area sucks hind end, and I can never remember where I put that dinky little asswipe-sized telephone.
I have a little tracfone which is cheap and easy to use. And a magicjack. Magicjack doesn't have the area code for my godforsaken neck of the woods, so I picked an area code at random from far away, with the pleasing result that no one can figure out my number.
The magicjack functions intermittently (damn cat keeps knocking it out of the usb port) but it serves my purpose. I don't want to be available 24/7.
And if some horrible event occurs, well, cell towers can go out also. It's the ham radio folks that save the day.
Do you have a tea shirt with "I'm an OLD" on it too? Apparently you know how to find the wonkette on the internets so you have that going for you.
The combo of low-tech and internet is odd.
It is strange that I always forget to charge my cellphone, but know what a "facepalm" is.
So, that's how you got that black eye.
Been working with computers since the mid 70's. But for the life of me, I don't see any good reason why my refrigerator needs to be IPv6 compliant so it can be accessed over the Internet.
And here I thought I was backwards in not getting a cell phone until 2007, and just having a basic phone instead of some Blackberry or iPhone, and not knowing how to text.
My husband used to park his Blackberry between his legs on road trips. I called it his "Scrote-berry."
I opt out.
"political organizations that get your number through petitions, calling lists, or affiliated organizations will be able to call your mobile phone whenever they choose."
So the solution is for folks to refrain from participating at all in the political process. Sounds like a win-win for the politicians who'd prefer it if citizens would just STFU already. Opt out, or be forced to listen to our calls. Your choice American People!
I'll just put my phone on "call forward" to 911 if the number calling me isn't in my contacts list.
Nah, put it on call forward to your least liked local politician's fundraising number.
Ring! A donation! Shit. Ring! A donation! Shit….
Just pretend to be dead a couple times when you answer the phone. They'll stop calling.
remember in chicago being dead doesn't stop you from voting. So it may not be as effective as you think.
I still get calls for my parents who died in '02 and '03. I used to politely tell the callers. Now I scream "Mrs. Geminisunmarses-mother no longer exists, stop calling." That hasn't worked either.
I actually run into that problem quite a bit because people call this number asking for my mother (why, I do not know; I must have put her name on something way back when). Well, she's been dead for a while now, so I always tell them that. There is a brief, shocked silence, followed by an apology and a hangup. But inevitably, it happens again a week or two later. Do these people not, I don't know, spread the word?
If they're at a call center, they don't know and don't care. They will dial thousands of numbers all day long. They don't give a shit who answers the phone or whether the number is right or wrong. There are no right or wrong numbers. There are numbers that get answered and numbers that don't. The list with that phone number will circle around forever. On those lists, no one ever dies.
Geezus. Good thing the default mode in this house is to not answer the phone.
Well, if it were Kortney calling me about her love of vegetables . . .
yeah, baby!
Simple solution: some enterprising person will implement the cell-phone equivalent of a spam filter. Saaaaay… you don't suppose that's the point of this legislation, and that Google has already alpha-tested the prototype, do you?
I don't answer my cell unless it is my husband or my agent.
I don't answer my cell unless it is my girlfriend or my wife's attorney.
I love the word”Mistress” it makes me want to run to Agent Provocateur and buy lots of sexy knickers.
Now I love the word "Mistress", too, for some reason.
Of course you do. I was a mistress for about 5 years, it was very exciting…until it wasn't.
I don't answer my cell phone unless it's my dealer or my parole officer.
How does your lover get a hold of you?
By my ankles
* rim shot *
No , I don't enjoy …oh ok, I see.
This is your agent. You have a 6 a.m. readthrough for "Drop Dead Diva"
I don't answer my phone so I can sing (loudly) along with the ring tones.
I don't answer my phone because no one calls me. :'(
What's your number, I will call you now, poor wee thing.
1-800-SANTORUM
I mean, it's popular on Google. You'd think SOMEONE would call.
If it's a number I don't know, I always answer "Doctor, my braaaaaain hurts. Will it haff to come out?"
I am the brain specialist!
is that how it goes? It's been awhile.
See boss, THIS is why I don't answer your calls!
Any fucking politician who calls me begging for money is going to get a picture of my cock texted back to them.
Actually, that would just encourage them.
Dick pics or gtfo.
Too many syllables for the age of twitter. DIX or GTFO.
"Actually, that would just encourage them."
Well, at least the Republican ones.
The good news is that you will probably get offers of money from them for that.
I hear it's HUGE. Any chance you could get it together with Rick Perry? He has a HUGE opening, you know.
Answer using the Speical Ed voice and they will pretty soon leave you alone. http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4b4cfdb75d/crank...
Yayyyy!
Hello, I'm not able to take this call right now, but if you are calling from a political campaign and leave a message that squanders any of my limited call allowance, I swear to God that I will find a way to cost your campaign a similar amount, whether it's by tying up staff members on the phone, making frivolous 1-800 calls, or mailing a brick to your offices postage-due.
Can I use that brick thing for some of my co-workers?
Don't these people realize that stalking is a turn-off?
To these people, stalking is foreplay.
Isn't that what them Twilight books is all about?
How the fuck do you think any of them ever get laid?
And Robin replied "Pootin' poo-holes, BM, what evil will they think of next?"
Nowdays Robin would tweet that, but I like the sentiment.
I didn't think this had much chance of being made into law until I saw the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is at the top of the list of endorsing organizations (followed by the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the Consumer Bankers Association).
That is, of course, assuming there's a direct link between corporate lobbying and legislation…
**sigh**
And if Barry O actually signs this piece of shit into law then I (the ultimate "be a grownup and choose the lesser of two evils" voter) might actually not vote for him next time.
Unless it's attached as a rider on a soak-the-rich tax increase. Then it'd be worth it. I can always turn off my cellie.
Every time a candidate calls fax/email back a copy of "Crime and Punishment."
this is probably the funniest idea i have heard all week.
Thank you. If enough folks would do it, it would end-up being the equivalent of a denial of service attack, but done with literary good taste. We don't need no evil pawn or powerbrokers now do we?
me however, i might go with proust.
In Search of Lost Time might be a bit weightier.
Or "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce"
Too bad Gutenberg doesn't have Mein Kampf, for candidates from that other party.
Sure, today we give 'em the right to make phone calls, and tomorrow the'll be turning into cars and trying to kill Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox.
so you're in favor of the legislation?
I'm even adding the robots to my Circle!
What are you talking about? The only movie with robots who turn into cars was the animated Transformers: The Movie in 1986, with Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy and Judd Nelson. It would be cool to a see a live action adaptation, but nobody has ever made one.
"to dial your cell phone and hand you off to a live person…"
So what you're saying is, *someone* will be hiring[?] live[!] persons to do these jobs: Win!
"or play automated messages"
…Still good news if you're lucky enough to be a dial-bot, I guess.
The jobs will be in Bangalore, alas. No help there. Unless you live in Bangalore. Then: Win!
I think the big pushers on this are the banks and collections agencies.
Just think, if you are trying to get some 20-something to pay their student loan, how are you going to contact / harass them? They've never had a land line, they're never GONNA have a land line.
What are you going to do, troll for them on Facebook?
Oh wait they do that already: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-09-28/news/1...
Now there is a strategy to win support for your cause, burn a guy’s cell phone minutes with robo-calls.
They are probably picturing the grateful Jitterbug users, charmed that someone is calling them.
Domo arigato bill robo-call-o
Baconz? A Styx reference? (albeit the worst one of theirs ever) I never thought I would see the day.
Styx is great…FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!
Granted, they are no Hank Jr.
Does this apply to texting too?
Fucking hell, I hope not. Somehow Best Buy got my number related to my phone being eligible for an upgrade (I think my wife asked about her options and my line got included) and they kept texting me every week for a month.
I can only imagine the shit that PACs would do if they got my number, much less every bullshit commercial entity.
Yeah, the only unwanted texts I get are from the Verizon.
When they bought my previous cell provider, it took about two of those texts, before I punched in the code to stop them from coming in anymore.
Best part is that they'll be using our minutes! Totally on our dime for them to skull-fuck us with their PAC boners until we all just unplug and wander the streets sobbing and hoping to be among the early wave of zombies.
Yep, and I love how the supporters go out of their way to try and hide this inconvenient fact:
In addition, most wireless consumers are now covered by flat-rate plans, and even for those who are not, technological advances and increased competition have greatly reduced per-minute charges.
IOW, "Suck it, consumers. Suck it long and hard."
If I don't know the number, I simply answer" "Congressman Cantor's Office; the Congressman can't come to the phone right now since he has one Koch in his mouth and the other up his ass.
I think I just fell in love with you, too. I'm'a try this on someone. Who can I possibly try it on, though?
Wish my mom was still alive.
Give me your number, you can try it on me. I promise I'll be offended.
You're so sweet when you're being insanely perverted.
I try. Really, I do.
Well, any bill that's endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and the banking industry can't be bad, right? All they're missing is the crucial KKK endorsement and it's a done deal!
I'm sure Verizon has no objection charging you for someone out of network calling your phone either.
Since there have been 40 or so rumors of this happening, over the last 10 years, by now noone will be excited, because they just assume its already legal.
So you'll have to opt-out of every single campaign, PAC, interest group, etc.? Newt probably has a couple of dozen just for himself And listening to the screech of either the Wasilla Grifter or the Minnesota Maniac would lead to increased road rage if not murders.
The jokes on them. My mail box is full because of 976 messages and I'm always sexting. Additionally I don't care if they call me. My work pays for my 3G or else I wouldn't have a moble. I'd also like to add when they are luckly enough to get a hold of me between phone sex sessions I'll just pretend I'm talking to a important client or my kid got hurt, walk out of the boring meeting and go get shit faced at the pub down the block.
Employee of the Year!!!
Can't they just send me some more e-mails I never read?
I think I would fall in love with you too, except you're insane, which is awfully cute until it turns into random weird behaviour. But consider yourself thought about with intent for the righteous approach to the workplace.
Fuck the 1st fucking Amendment!!1!
Yeah but I'm a Democrat so I legally can't vote in my state.
We always include a demo-crate in our computer games.
"The games not complete until we have a demo-crate."
Eh — block everything that comes up "restricted" or "unknown." And I'll do that just as soon as I can find where that is in the 300-page booklet I got with my damn phone. Actually it's only 150 pages since half of it's upside-down and in Spanish — which leads me to wonder why bats in Mexico have cell phones, but that's beside the point.
Regarding that list:
What did Haliburton get 5 for fighting? Why is team evil playing the penalty kill?
In all fairness, call centers are one the few growth industries in America. They deserve our support.
Yeah. Read an article about the problem they are having in North Dakota hiring people to work minimum wage jobs at the rising numbers of call centers that are opening up. Seems that some rocket scientist may have figured out that it's tough to get people to move to a state that has 100 below zero weather, 10 months of the year, for 6.75 a hour and no benefits.
I hear you, Captain Al Cohol
OT, but Christie is now going on a full hour of public self-love. Does there come a time when you recognize the elephant in the living room and call a raging narcissist a raging narcissist?
Not if the raging narcissistic boner is dangling from a Conservative.
Just don't call him a raging elephant.
Or go the fuck ahead. Whatever. He's probably used to it.
when i heard he was holding a press conference this morning i thought 'oh he's going to run'.
but no, no, he just wanted the attention. politicians really are actors without talent.
I saw some of that, just slamming Hopey in between saying how fucking "authentic" he is. Pratt.
Hmmm – give fake number to campaigns? Use Google Voice with the "send unknown callers to voicemail" option? Get an airhorn and blast the eardrum of anyone who calls?
So many possibilities …
Wasn't there an old movie where Danny DeVito said something like "I'm sorry. Diane can't come to the phone right now. She's got my dick in her mouth."
And as a female, that would be even funnier coming from me…
Yeah. Oddly enough, my wife didn't find it near as funny when I did the same thing when her Mother called to talk to her.
I have to say that wives are the most humourless fucking entities. Mine was fine until we settled down together. Now that we're no longer together, she laughs herself sick at half the things I say. When we *were* together, she was constantly lecturing me for being flip and not taking things seriously and deity knows what else.
Of course, if I'd said anything like that to her Mom, I probably wouldn't be alive today …
Yeah. The name of that film was "Harry Potter and the Snowbilly Grifter"
This is good news for Newt Gingrich's dating life.
I for one welcome the opportunity to individually tell every PAC that calls me to go fuck itself sideways.
Every time they call, charge them a $1000 user fee. Deduct it from your taxes.
My buddy's daughter taught me to put a straw into my under arm, close the arm to the side, and blow through the straw. Makes very realisitic musical farts. Tell them you are busy "making poopies, " and giggle.
Great.
Is it on YouTube?
Further proof that the Republicans in Congress are looking out for the average person over their corporate overloads….
Wait, what?
The callers will have to fit time between the calls from India about selling or buying a timeshare, and the free cruises that my family has won.
i can't afford a cell phone so the joke's on them
I always press the prompts that take me to a live person. Then, I read from some of the more lurid selections found on literotica.com. Somewhere out there, a campaign volunteer from the doomed McCain-Palin experiment cringes every time they hear the word "moist".
Ring, Ring, Ring.
"Why hello there Mr./Ms. Politician. Thanks for calling me to ask my opinion. Do you know who I admire? Jared Laughner, Timothy McVeigh, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Hinkley Jr. I've seen Silence of the Lambs 107 times, ya know. I love cell phones because I can easily save your number in my contact list. Do you know what I else I like? Guns and bullets. Lots and lots of guns and bullets. Can't get enough of them. Hey, I saw your family's picture on the Google. Those kids of yours sure have pretty mouths. Hey, I have a new windowless white van. Do your kids like candy? I have lots of candy. I lost my puppy. Do you think your kids would be able to help me find my lost puppy? I would give them some candy if they ride around with me in my windowless white van and help me look for my lost puppy. Hello? Hello? Hello?"
Coffee up and out the nose. ftw
I would fuck me.
My favorite thing is to pick up the phone, say "hello" and let the caller / telemarketer / politician go. If you don't say anything, they will go on and on. Finally, they will say something like "Do you agree and will you support x, y. or z??" If you're lucky, the spiel will have been at least a minute or two (or seem like it).
Then, I just say, "What?"
If you're really lucky, they'll start in again…
"What?"
Then I hang up.
Oh, and this is the best cell phone ever: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://techsi...
That made me laugh really hard. I'll have to try that sometime.
Just say, "We have early voting by mail in my state and I already voted for your candidate." Say it like you mean it and it usually gets you taken right off their list. They don't waste their time phoning people whose vote they already have.
Oh, hey, excellent idea! Thanks!
I ask them if they can hold on a minute and then walk away from the phone. Go do the dishes or take a dump or something. Might not work on cell phone though unless you have unlimited time.
Couldn't Congress have come up with something a bit more popular with the citizens that it pretends to represent? A bill to require shooting puppies or drowning kittens should do it.
Congress won't stop until its disapproval rating is greater than pedophiles and animal abusers.
Isn't it already?
I thought it already was. Besides, they've got animal abusers in their ranks.
Give them the number of your local congressional representative instead.
I'm going to have to rig my cell phone the same way I rigged my old landline answering machine.
You know that three-tone "vacant circuit" signal that the phone company gives you when you dial a number that's not in service? Start your outgoing message with these three tones. You can follow the tones with your usual "Hi, this is … " message. Anytime you don't recognize the caller, let voice mail pick up the call.
The robo-calling bastards' computers will automatically hang up and move on to the next victim on the list, before ever getting to the voice message. They actually bail out when they get the first two tones …. you don't even need all three.
Subscribed.
My phone number is (202) 225-4035
Aw, I thought this article was going to be about those of us with cell phones being literally taken out by drones. That would be SO preferable to this legislation.
Get your cell phone from AARP (that means you, Prommie) and the only sales calls you'll get will be for boner pills, adult diapers, oxygen tanks, and bathtubs with doors. Advertisers don't think olds need anything else.
"….incessant demands for cash/help/sex."
Stupid, stupid, stupid! That's what people get married for. Right?
Er, no, but the first two is definitely what they have kids for.
How very popular it is too!
POPVOX Nation:
0% Support
100% Oppose
(5,434 users)
Does Congress get paid in accordance with their disapproval rating, or something?
They get paid. Period.
this is their jobs bill??
How enlightened that Obama would also turn loose the bill collectors in this time of ease and plenty.
The title certainly is on target… makes me want a cookie, for some reason.
Could you say more about that?
I look forward to your memoirs!
I might just have kinda fallen in love with you. If there's one thing I like, it's a curmudgeon. I envision an old age of running my hiking stick along people's picket fences, just to annoy.
Oh, we're in FINE form today, aren't we?
You've got half the people here fapping madly, you know.
What the hell are the other half doing?
You probably mean the part when it was exciting, right?
Presumably, they're female, and wondering if it would be appropriate to join in.
Not Barb, though. I know you two have that whole little sexaytime tease going.
All of it, Chessie.
Oh totally. If I live that long, I plan to be the terror of the nursing home. I'll be the weird old guy listening to the Pogues and doesn't talk to anyone.
But what was Albertine doing with that other guy?
Plagued by NIMBYs too? Sorry to hear that.
You'd think that the cradle of Silicon Valley would have good reception, but NOOOOOO!
I know! Well, my patience, at least.
It is a virtue, I understand. Too bad there's no real demand for virtuous people.
Comments on this entry are closed.