Scam Alert! Robo Calls Offer to Lower Your Credit Card Interest Rate

Remember earlier this year when so many people were inundated with calls from scam artists trying to get them to buy bogus car warranties? The calls would come several times a day to cell phones as well as home phones and when you tried to track the number you found out the caller was using spoofing software to mask their real number.

Well, be prepared for round two. This time it's some unidentified company offering to lower your credit card rates. Beware, you do not want to talk to these people and you definitely do not want to give them your credit card number.

The number they called from is (408) 651-8128. When you call it back the line just goes dead. This robo-call uses a pre-recorded message and offers you the chance to speak to a live operator by pushing "1" or being removed form their list by pressing "3". These types of calls are illegal and I bet before too long we hear horror stories about people accepting the offer to reduce their credit card rates only to find out they've been scammed into giving up personal information and having their identity ripped off or end up with bogus charges on their cards.

Why They Love Detroit

Here's a fun article from CNNMoney.com Assignment Detroit. 13 people share their stories about why they love the Motor City. While I reading their stories I was struck by how similar they were to people who love the Youngstown area. They all had a favorite place that meant something to them, some special spot that defined why they loved Detroit.



It would be tough for me to pick one place in Youngstown or the surrounding area that is a favorite spot. I guess it would be Stambaugh Auditorium, specifically the front steps. The building looks so majestic and is built so solidly that it just gives this sense of permanence. I've been there for concerts, stand up comedians and taken wedding pictures there. It's just such a landmark for folks who aren't very familiar with the city. Whoever you talk to has always attended at least one event there, even if it was a play when they were back in school.

How about you?

Damn Browns!

Man, I just can't take it anymore. This season the Brown's just stink. Just like they did last season and the season before and pretty much every season since they returned in 1999.

You really have to question your loyalty to such a team after this many years without success or even without hope. So I've channeled my frustration into T-shirts.

Damn Browns

Nobody Ruins a Sunday Like the Browns

Only France Loses More Often Than the Browns

All are available at Rust Belt Pop for $19.95.

A Solar Panel Plant in Northeast Ohio? Maybe, With These Changes

Thomas Friedman has an excellent column in today's New York Times describing the changes required to make the manufacturing of solar panels and other equipment profitable in the United States. He counts three things as being necessary:

• Allowing anyone to generate electricity from solar (which we do).
• Connecting those customers to the electrical grid (which we do).
• Mandating the utlility company buy power from these users (not in place currently)

He conducts an interview with Mike Splinter, the CEO of Applied Materials, a company that makes the machines that make solar panels. The Silicon Valley comapny has built 14 solar panel manufacturing plants in the last two years but none of them are in America.

The problem is that the United States lacks the advantages countries like Germany and China have implemented, namely "certainty of price, connectivity and regulation on a national basis".

I've looked into solar panels and the cost is $18,000 for a home system that will take 20 years to pay for itself in reduced electric bills. If utilities were mandated to buy power from residential and business owners they could reduce their dependency on coal and natural gas, lower their pollution emissions and most importantly, allow individuals to recoup their investment in home solar more quickly. Instead of reducing our electric bills we would be generating power and selling it to utilities during the day when no one is home. Small businesses could take advantage of this to power their server hosting.

I would love to be in the solar power bsiness.

The consequences are dire for ignoring these new technologies and allowing other countries to move ahead of us:

although consumer demand for solar power has incrementally increased here, it
has not been enough for anyone to have Applied Materials — the world’s biggest
solar equipment manufacturer — build them a new factory in America yet. So,
right now, our federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are
largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China, by Chinese
workers, using hi-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America.

Germany has put 50,000 people to work in renewable energy industries. Ohio has a massive unemployment problem that could be solved by building solar panels. We're good at building things here. Manufacturing is sort of our thing. I think there are some synergies that could be put to work.

Pittsburgh Comicon 2009

The Pittsburgh Comicon took place last weekend at the new Monroeville Convention Center and Sunday was great day to go (Hmmm... a new convention center). The crowd was out in force and fans took the opportunity to bring out the costumes they've been working on. This show is always fun and brings out a great selection of artists, writers and independent publishers. I managed to snag a sketch by Mike McKone and grab a bunch of graphic novels at half-price. There are pics below of fans in costume.

The next show in this area is the Screaming Tiki Con at the Eastwood Expo Center in Niles on November 13-15. This was a fun show last year and it's good to see it return. In addition to comics, it will have toys, sci-fi and games so this is a very good way to spend a day with the family.

Batman villian Scarecrow has to buy a ticket like everyone else.

Cobra Commander fights a Jedi

Harley Quinn with a big hammer.

Batman villians galore

The X-Men's Rogue

A family of Fett

The golden age Red Tornado

The golden age Flash

The best costume of the show...the Golden Age Sandman

Who ya gonna call?

The new venue

$1.7 Million Dollar Investment in Hubbard

There is good news in the Vindicator today for the City of Hubbard. It was announced at city council last night that Sharon Regional Health System will occupy the former Nemenz IGA store on West Liberty St. and build the Hubbard Diagnostic and Specialty Center. From the article:

The new center will bring speciality physicians to Hubbard in the areas of
cardiology, general surgery, sports medicine and orthopedic surgery along with
diagnostic tests including X-ray, ultrasound, EKGs, pre-surgical testing,
laboratory tests along with physical therapy and a specialized heart center for
advanced cardiac testing.

This is great news for a couple of reasons. The center occupies an empty store that did not have much chance of being occupied. Large retailers had no reason to settle in the location with Wal-Mart and the many plazas of Belmont Ave. easily accessible in nearby Liberty Township. The role UFCW Local 880 played in closing the Nemenz IGA virtually guaranteed no grocery store would ever consider the location. The new diagnostic center diversifies the city's business foundation, provides a needed service and occupies a large store that was previously vacant. This is a win for Hubbard in tough economic times.

My Favorite Steelers Photo

Courtesy of the "People of Wal-Mart" blog, my favorite Steelers photo ever.

New Items Available at Rust Belt Pop

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Rust Belt Pop has new items available. Just click on the panel above.

How Ideology Interferes with Discussing Health Care Reform

There is an excellent article here in the Washington Post regarding end of life care, how it was successfully championed in La Crosse, WI and how that effort was somehow twisted into Sarah Palin's "Death Panels".

End of life planning gives an individual the opportunity to say which measures should be used or not used to prolong their life under certain circumstances. The really great thing about this article is that it drives home the reality of how we make these decision in America; about how we refuse to discuss our own mortality, sometimes delaying it to the point where we cannot discuss it.

Proper planning can reduce the chances that a family will ever have to watch a doctor walk into a waiting room, explain the limited options available to their incapacitated loved one and then ask them what to do.

If you haven't done this you have no idea how hard it can be to live with that decision. You are literally taking your loved one's life in your hands and trying to think as they would. Asking, "What would you do? What would you want?"

This planning can give family members the peace of mind to make decisions they know their loved one would want. The language in this health care reform bill would allow doctors to be compensated for providing the counseling. That's all. Just paying doctors for the service so your family knows exactly what your wishes are.

And somehow Sarah Palin was able to pervert that noble effort into "death panels". And senior legislators who should know better, like Sen. Chuck Grassley, reinforced the lie with statements like getting rid of provisions that would "pull the plug on grandma".

People need to have these discussions with medical professionals and those doctors should be compensated for their expertise. It would be shameful if this language were removed from the final version of the bill. Please take a moment to read the article.

Traficant is Free

Jimbo is on the loose.

Those owing eight years worth of kickbacks can leave them outside his farm in plain, unmarked envelopes. As always, cash is preferred.

Office staffers, er, field hands for his farm should report to work early this Saturday.

No word on whether he or his supporters will apologize for humiliating the Mahoning Valley.

Further updates as they occur.