By admin (
March 15, 2008 at 9:03 pm)
· Filed under Politics
Since 1962, Scranton, Pennsylvania has hosted the second largest Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in the country. This year was no exception! Thousands of people lined the streets, watching the 9,000 participants of all ages!
The Obama campaign was present in all parts of the parade as surrogate speaker Max Kennedy met parade watchers and encouraged them to vote for Barack Obama.
Scranton residents rallied for Obama by wearing special Saint Patrick’s Day Obama stickers, holding signs and carrying around balloons.
Jennifer, Marissa and Debbie are excited to vote on April 22 for Barack. Jennifer, a teacher, supports Barack’s education policy. Debbie likes to see the younger generations get involved in politics and the grassroots movement behind the campaign.
Campaign Manager David Plouffe just sent this note to our hard-working Iowa staffers. We thought we’d share it with you…
Dear Team Iowa,
Another contest in Iowa just showed the hard work and dedication you put into the state. For those of you that worked the caucuses, you gave momentum to put us in the great position we are in. For those of you that came back for the county conventions, you worked your magic again, along with the precinct captains and supporters to squeeze 7 more delegates out of Iowa for Barack (there may still be one up for grabs).
Thanks for all of your hard work. I know you are all tired, but dig deep, remember the way you felt after the Iowa Caucuses, and the way staff there feels again tonight.
-David
Let’s keep the momentum going. Who’s ready to spend a chunk of your Sunday making calls? Your voices have proven to be a critical difference in tight races across the country. This movement needs to step up — visit My.BarackObama.com/call and let us know how it goes in the comments.
By admin (
March 15, 2008 at 9:03 pm)
· Filed under Politics
Brandi, one of our grassroots supporters from Minneapolis, has been calling Pennsylvania voters since 9:15 a.m. this morning to let them know about the upcoming registration deadline, and to share why she supports Barack Obama. She’s also been posting her stories in the comments of the HQ blog all day today, and the response has been incredible. Her efforts have inspired others to pick up the phone themselves, to donate, and to work for change.
A few hours ago she took a break to write:
Re: WORK, CALL, DONATE.
This has been an emotional day for me. I was afraid yesterday, how I handled that was by donating today and calling. It’s the inspiration and belief in Barack that led me back here.
My parents are pretty exited about my blog making it big time. Now my mom is calling and my brother said he was going to wait until the convention but is going to donate today.
Thanks for all of your encouragement. I pledged to Blake, a young man, who has been driving across country helping with this campaign, I would do 8 hours of calling. I am almost done.
Won’t some of you call PA, or IN or NC? Indiana only has until April 7th to register.
I am so humbled to be a part of something so incredibly amazing!
Brandi Minneapolis
The Pennsylvania calling campaign runs until 9:00 p.m. tonight, and will start again at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. We need our supporters to reach out to Pennsylvania Independents and non-affiliated voters to let them know that they have just a few days to register to participate in next month’s Democratic primary, and to let them know why it’s so important for them to make their voices heard.
This is your chance to join Brandi, and extraordinary people like her all across the country, to help make a difference. Once voice can change a room; one call make a difference.
By admin (
March 15, 2008 at 9:03 pm)
· Filed under SEO
WHO: St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County. WHAT: The California Department of Public Health is investigating St. Joseph for conducting three ‘wrong site’ operations since January 2006. Botched surgeries include operating on a patient’s good knee and making an incision on the wrong side of a patient’s head. WHERE: Orange hospital under investigation for operating room error [L.A. Times] THE QUOTE: “Members of the clinical team involved in these cases have been deeply affected, and as a hospital we take this very seriously and regret that it happened,” [Dr. Raymond Casciari, St. Joseph’s chief medical officer] said.
“Taking it seriously” is a phrase companies use over and over again in public statements whenever they have bad PR. Our series of posts on occurrences of the phrase is our attempt to question how seriously companies are really taking these matters if every time they trot out this phrase by rote.
By admin (
March 15, 2008 at 8:03 pm)
· Filed under SEO
Hey OfficeMax, Bill ordered a spindle of CD-Rs, not a batch of CD-Rs carelessly dumped into a box without the spindle or any protective cushioning. Did you seriously think he wouldn’t notice or complain about the pell-mell packing job? Unsurprisingly, the CD-Rs are scratched and ruined. Bill isn’t pleased, but he’s taking the flub in stride.
He writes:
Howdy Consumerist,
I stumbled across your site recently and am now addicted to it. Today I got a package from OfficeMax where we recently ordered some CD-Rs. One of our front office gals opened the box to find the following: (attached picture #1)
Quite a bit different than what is pictured on their website.
I guess whoever packaged the cds was hard up for spindles? The shrink wrap from the spindle was still in the box, but the cds were not in the shrink wrap. We’re sending the cds back of course and hopefully the next batch won’t come unwrapped, unspindled, and with scratches all over them!
We are racking our minds for possible spindle uses that would explain the disappearance—random DIY projects like a makeshift pineapple stand, maybe? Please, if you can think of something, share your insights in the comments.
By admin (
March 15, 2008 at 7:03 pm)
· Filed under SEO
American Airlines managed to rebook all but five passengers after canceling one of its four daily flights from Chicago to London. The five still needed to get to London, so American rustled up an empty plane and invited everyone up to business class. Seems nice, but Friends of the Earth is outraged that American burned 22,000 gallons of fuel for five passengers. Great customer service or eco-scandal? Vote in our poll, after the jump.
American claims they had no alternative:
“With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights.
“However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the US on the same aircraft.
“We sought alternative flights for the west-bound passengers but heavy loads out of London that day meant that this was not possible.”
By admin (
March 15, 2008 at 7:03 pm)
· Filed under SEO
Lars writes:
Something pretty bad happened to me the other week that ended up being pretty cool, and speaks well to the quality of customer service at my local Burlington Coat Factory.
I bought a couple of shirts and a sweater there, and after which went to continued shopping. Upon returning to our car, my wife and I noticed that our doors were unlocked and that the sack of clothes from Burlington were missing. Someone had reach their apparently skinny arms into the crack we left in the window and unlocked the passenger side door.
My immediate reaction was, “bummer, but at least nothing else was missing and no one got hurt.” My wife, with over a decade of retail experience, knew that our best chance of getting the stuff back was to go back to the store and ask them to look out for someone trying to return the items. A security employee named Justin took my information and said he would give me a call if anything came up.
Sure enough, 8 PM that night, Justin called and said that my items were back in the store after someone, who was still in the store, had attempted to rerun them. Since I had used a credit card, he couldn’t get cash, so he was trying to find something he wanted in exchange. Justin also informed me that they had called to Police.
Great! So, what happened? Sure enough, the supposed thief tried to book-it out of the store once he saw the cop, and was apprehended. After a short and pleasant phone conversation with officer Rutherford of Clackamas PD later that night to corroborate my story, I was informed that I could come retrieve my clothes the next day.
Our purchases have fortunately never disappeared, despite presenting thieves with ample opportunity thanks to our near-criminal absentmindedness. Lars and his wife handled the situation like pros. If your shopping vanishes, always have a chat with the store manager and, if the goods are valuable, call the cops.
Has one of your shopping expeditions ever ended with a loss? Tell us what happened and how you responded in the comments.
Now my mom is calling and my brother said he was going to wait until the convention but is going to donate today. 
WHO: St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County.
Hey OfficeMax, Bill ordered a spindle of CD-Rs, not a batch of CD-Rs carelessly dumped into a box without the spindle or any protective cushioning. Did you seriously think he wouldn’t notice or complain about the pell-mell packing job? Unsurprisingly, the CD-Rs are scratched and ruined. Bill isn’t pleased, but he’s taking the flub in stride.
One of our front office gals opened the box to find the following: (attached picture #1)
American Airlines managed to rebook all but five passengers after canceling one of its four daily flights from Chicago to London. The five still needed to get to London, so American rustled up an empty plane and invited everyone up to business class. Seems nice, but Friends of the Earth is outraged that American burned 22,000 gallons of fuel for five passengers. Great customer service or eco-scandal? Vote in our poll, after the jump.
Lars writes: