By now, most of you have probably seen the new E*Trade commercial in their talking baby series, “Baby – Girlfriend”. If not, go watch it now and then keep reading.
I watched the ad when it first came out, and I’ve watched it several times since then, and it makes me laugh every time. It’s definitely one of the best ads in the series.
Apparently, not everyone thinks so. The Boston Heraldreported today that Lindsay Lohan has filed a $100 million suit against E*Trade, alleging that “a ditzy toddler appearing in [the ad] is modeled after her and improperly invokes her ‘likeness, name, characterization and personality without permission.’”
When asked for comment, the company that produced the ad said they “just used a popular baby name that happened to be the name of someone on the account team.”
Hey, Lindsay: How about we go back ten years or so to when you were cute and lovable, and just pretend that the intervening years of drug and alcohol abuse, humiliating public behavior, promiscuity, and unbelievable narcissism never happened, eh?
I’m hoping that this is all just some sort of misguided publicity stunt. The alternative, that Lohan actually believes that she has exclusive rights to the use of the name “Lindsay” in entertainment, is just too painful too contemplate.
Credit Card Services
Post Office Box 7092
Bridgeport, CT 06601
Account Number XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX
I am writing to dispute the following charge:
01/29 02/01 85456110031701887007089 MAD HAT INTERNATIONAL COLUMBIA SC 18.45
Before making this purchase, I contacted the merchant and asked specific questions about the product I was considering purchasing, to determine if it would meet my needs. The answers to my questions provided by the merchant were objectively, factually incorrect. If the merchant had answered correctly, I would have known that the product was not suitable for my needs, and I would not have purchased it.
On the day the product arrived, February 2, 2010, I immediately ascertained upon opening it that the merchant had provided me with incorrect information and the product was useless to me. I put it back in its packaging without using it and sent the merchant email complaining about the problem. He did not respond to my email.
I sent another email February 22, and once again, the merchant did not respond.
Recently, the JanSport backpack I’ve been using for many years broke — the pull tab broke off of one of the zippers.
JanSport packs have a lifetime warranty. Following the instructions on the JanSport Web site, I sent the pack in for repair or replacement. The Web site promised a turnaround time of about two weeks.
About a week and a half later, I got this amusing postcard in the mail:
I received in the mail today responses to my complaint about St. Elizabeth’s from Tufts Health Plan and the Division of Health Care Quality of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
It’s not terribly surprising that St. Elizabeth’s lied to Tufts and the DPH just like they lied to us. After all, once they made the decision to evade and lie rather than admitting to having made mistakes, they had to be consistent about it. What’s surprising is that they weren’t consistent about it — the story they told to Tufts, the DPH and me have different elements and are in some cases contradictory. Some interesting tidbits: Read the rest of this entry »
Janet Davis
Patient Relations Coordinator
St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center
736 Cambridge Street
Brighton, MA 02135-2907
Dear Ms. Davis,
My wife received your response, dated February 12, to my January 26 letter to John Holiver. When coupled with the problems which prompted our letter, your appalling response is enough to convince us to never again entrust our family’s care to St. Elizabeth’s.
I will respond point-by-point to the claims made in your letter.
American Honda Motor Company, Incorporated
Honda Automobile Customer Service
Fax: (310) 783-3023
To whom it may concern:
I sent you the attached letter via fax on November 17. You did not give me the courtesy of a reply, but at least the spam directed at my wife’s email address seems to have stopped.
Unfortunately, now Honda Village is spamming MY email address, jik@kamens.brookline.ma.us, instead of my wife’s.
A friend of mine (thanks Bruce!) pointed me at a totally cool personal file sharing service called Dropbox.
In a nutshell, Dropbox smartly and automatically synchronizes a hierarchy of folders among any number of Windows PCs, Macs, Linux PCs and iPhones. All of the synchronized changes are automatically backed up on Dropbox’s servers, and you can go back into the past to retrieve previous versions or deleted files.
It is worth noting that E. Peter Mullane’s chief claim to fame is that he is one of the lawyers who defended John J. Connolly Jr., the former FBI agent who was convicted in federal court of racketeering, obstruction of justice, murder and conspiracy to commit murder and will be spending the rest of his life in prison. Nice!
I am not going to publish Mullane’s letter here, because there are all kinds of legal issues with that, and… well… Mullane is a lawyer, y’know? I will, however, publish the response I just sent him, from which you can get a pretty good idea of the claims he made in his letter. Enjoy!
In a February 10 column printed in the Boston Herald, Jonah Goldberg repeats the anti-global-warming canard that severe snowstorms are evidence against global warming. In response, I sent the following letter to the editor:
To the editor:
Jonah Goldberg’s recent suggestion that severe winter weather disproves global warning shows an alarming ignorance of basic science. In particular:
When the air is warmer, more water evaporates into it.
When there is more water in the air, it snows more.
Once you get below freezing, colder temperatures actually decrease snowfall.
In short, the simple truth is that global warming causes more snow, not less.
Of course, ideologues like Goldberg rarely let something as inconvenient as the truth stand in the way of their agenda.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
Brighton
Not only did the Herald not print my letter or any other letter or opinion piece making a similar point, they have run at least two idiotic editorial cartoons mocking the idea that more snow supports global warming theories. Read the rest of this entry »
I enjoyed Joe Fitzgerald’s recent satire of the pro-life movement. I laughed so hard coffee came out my nose when I read that “the only choice [the pro-choice movement] will tolerate is its own.” It was obvious that he was joking, since it’s so patently absurd to suggest that people protecting a woman’s right to choose are trying to deny her a choice.
Wait, what’s that? He was serious? Are you sure? Oh, in that case, never mind.
Fitzgerald is right that pro-choice extremists sometimes say stupid things, but I’ll take them over the extremists on the other side who think it’s God’s work to assassinate doctors performing legal medical procedures.
![[Digg]](http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Email]](http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
