IonOtter

I can answer this one. A friend of mine got saddled with bogus debt, and the vultures tried to come after me.

Bad move.

Here's what you say:

"You are recording this call, and so am I. This call is on a private line that is monitored by my employer. My name is XXX, and the person you are calling and/or asking for does not, and has not, lived or had any association with this address or this phone number. This is your official first notice under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, United States Code 15, title 1692c, section 805, paragraph c: CEASING COMMUNICATION.

You are to remove this phone number from your records. You are to never call this number again by any means, be they digital or analog, voice or fax, except as provided under the provisions of paragraph c, sub-paragraphs 1-3. You are not to transfer or provide this number to any other agent, agency or operative with the company you work for, or otherwise represent. You are not to associate this number with the collection records you have been working from, nor will you include this number in any transactions with any other business, should those records or the account associated with them be sold/transferred to another company.

This is your first official warning under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, United States Code 15, title 1692c, section 805, paragraph c: CEASING COMMUNICATION. Do not call this number again. The time, date and duration of this call has been recorded. The contents of this call has been recorded. Any future violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act will result in your employer being reported as being in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Do you understand what I have just told you?

Do you acknowledge that under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, United States Code 15, title 1692c, section 805, paragraph c: CEASING COMMUNICATION, I have instructed you and the company and/or agencies you represent that you are to never contact me or this number ever again, except as provided under the provisions of paragraph c, sub-paragraphs 1-3?

Have you documented my invocation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, United States Code 15, title 1692c, section 805, paragraph c: CEASING COMMUNICATION, in the record and/or records that you are currently working from?"

They better answer "Yes." to each one. Depending on what state you live in, if they call you again, except as provided, they will get raped with a spiked telephone pole, and you'll get a very hefty financial judgement in your bank account.

Print this out in large, bold print and keep it by the phone. Most likely, you will only have to read it once.

Been there, done that, got the call records on my bill.

Change can come from within.

Yeah. It's called "digestion."

You join, you're consumed, they get stronger, and you're a pile of poop at the end.

The pesticide thing is far worse than you realize.

People, farmers and lawn management services are using persistent herbicides.

Manure, especially horse and cow manure, should be considered radioactive.

Not even joking.

Even if the farmer claims that they don't use those herbicides, they might have had to buy fodder from a supplier who does, or got it from someone else who does. It only takes one mistake.

This stuff doesn't break down. It stays viable for up to five years, and it gets into the recycling stream with ridiculous ease. Municipal compost, for example, is dangerous for your garden, especially if you live in a large, wealthy area. All the grass clippings are added to the grinders, and all of it becomes deadly to anything but ornamentals and shrubs.

All of your broadleaf vegetables, such as beans, peas, cucurbits and others have no resistance, and die. Non-heirlooms have some resistance, and some varieties of commercial potatoes are better, but one single mistake with non-organic compost will end your gardening hobby for three to five years.

You can remove the contaminated soil, but usually by the time you notice the trouble, it'll take you a while to figure out what is causing it. Once you make the connection, it has been washed deeper into the garden, and you have to remove all your best soil.

If you have the space, you'll have to dig a whole new garden, and convert the old one to resistant crops for a few years.

You have an enourmous span of historical knowledge on past events.

Keeping this in mind, whenever I read old copies or anthologies of Doonesbury, I am astounded at how the topics of the 70's, 80's and even the 90's are 100% applicable to the topics of of today

Sometimes it's just a passing similarity, but often it looks as if the criminals/politicians/dictators/leaders of today picked up their "script" from 30 years ago.

As someone who's been in the business of telling us about the state of the world from 1950 to the present, how much of this "similarity" do you see, and how does it affect you and your work?

You're married, and have a child.

1. What precautions have you taken to shield them from the shitstorm that's coming? Have you set aside a bank account in your wife's name to make sure they will have money when the government takes your account? Have you supplied her with a supply of cash and instructed her to keep it somewhere safe? Does she have a go-bag for herself and her daughter, kept at a relative's house? (Your house is going to be locked down for at least 3 days.)

2. Have you backed up all your data and put it somewhere safe?

3. Have you hired a lawyer yet? If you haven't, then this conversation and AMA is pretty much over, and we're chatting with a pile of hamburger that doesn't realize it's hamburger yet.

I have seen many stories like this one in the pages of 2600, and stories on TechDirt, SlashDot and others. So have you, I'm sure. I can reasonably tell you that chances are extremely high that you are going to be royally fucked. Perhaps the one thing that might save you from being skinned alive, is that you're getting your message out BEFORE they have a chance to craft theirs.

But that won't last long.

So. Well done on the deed, but the execution leaves much to be desired.