G.E telephone which was bought out by sprint did this to a friend who lived in their coverage area (but ironically 200 yards from my SBC covered house). They said the same thing, it's just the way it is. We called the public utilities commission of our state and complained about it. Within two weeks he had a credit amount on his bill and evidently the phone company had to pay back quite a few people. This was shortly before Verizon purchased them.

I'm not surprised Verizon sprint tried this too. I had the nextel phone because of specific coverage and when sprint purchased them, they attempted to charge me more as well as failed to maintain coverage areas. They would call me about 3 times a week, even after being told not to call any more several times, to request I purchase a sprint plan along with a new phone and 2 year contract. I told them my contract with nextel wasn't up and they explained they owned nextel so it would be ok and I explained to them that if they owned nextel, it shouldn't matter but if I was changing contract companies, it sure as hell wouldn't be with the company that screwed nextel coverage up.

Sorry about that tangent. The point is, check with your state utilities commission when crap like this happens. Every state has one but might call it something different. Often just having them look into it is enough to get them to fix the issues.

The power company does this because increased usages on large scale screws up their base calculations as well as makes them purchase more surge energy at higher costs. This goes to how the utility purchases power for use on the grid. They are also limited in how they charge often having to petition a state utilities board to raise rates to consumers. Telcos do not have this problem and if someone makes a call that crosses an expensive switchboard, they simply pass the costs on to the consumer as the long distance rate.

I agree, it should be something obvious but they are different beasts altogether.

It was the guys fault. I've seen it done in the past with other national providers. A local access number goes down and it picked one for you- probably in the same area code. Before you know it, its a long distance hell and phone companies have comp the charges traditionally in the past too. The rarity of this story is that it still happens and neither the phone company or the ISP was able to catch it.

It used to be harder before you had to dial the area codes with most every calls. Then, you would get an error message when trying to connect that you could hear through the modem speaker (assuming it was a real hardware modem and not a winmodem). But when they started requiring area codes for local calls, mistakenly dialing long distance calls got a lot easier. In my area, it costs more to call long distance within the state than it does to call long distance to somewhere outside the state. Something about the exchange connections and not being able to use a long haul backbone. At least that was the case 15 years ago when I had a land line.

My bank does it with debit cards also. It's a smaller community bank and I have found it annoying a couple of times when I had to answer an alert or had a large purchase declined but they allowed me to adjust my limits and everything to mostly avoid tripping it. Perhaps some banks are still into customer service. This one used to have awesome hours (7:00 am to 7:00 pm) but cut back with the financial crisis to more normal bankers hours (8:00 am to 5:00 pm) but they said they are trying to staff to return to the old hours now that things are picking back up.

No, it's because your wife can't cook. Seriously, rumor is the flies in the neighborhood all chipped in and purchased her a screen door last spring.

lol.. The constitution makes reference to common law. I really don't know what your point is if you are not trying to claim common law is superior.

The US constitution was created to constitute a federal government and define its role. In doing so, it put limits on the federal government that common law cannot surmount.

Lol.. good luck finding a payphone anywhere.

Yup, there has been free phones for about a decade or longer.

A lot of Ebooks can be read on cell phones which aren't far off from small tablets. I have a niece who reads about a book a week on her phone in the time it takes to ride to and from school, waiting for things, and study hall in school or even when bored at home.

Most of the poor can get phones- the obama phone for instance, some should be capable of reading ebooks (I know obama isn't behind the phone but that's what its called). I imagine you need an app for that and wifi from some place which is why internet access it part of the plan. I also imagine the app for that will collect location data, names and numbers and all sorts of other things like the fucking flashlight apps that need access to your files, address book, GPS and so on when installing.

Actually, there is a constitutional basis for a federal government department. It would simply be an office under the executive with a head of the office as in "principal Officer in each of the executive Departments" as mentioned in Article II, Section 2 - otherwise known today as the cabinet. In fact, most federal agencies started that way and George Washington even had them.

A constitutional department would not be one that makes laws/regulations though. It/they could carry out the executive's duty to see the laws are faithfully executed in the name of the president. So in the manner they are present today, I completely agree, but a department that advises the president and offers laws to congress in the name of the president for consideration would be just as constitutional as his cabinet posts. In fact, it would more or less just be the secretarial and resource pool of his cabinet posts allowed by law.

Sigh.. The slavery issue as well as the secession issues would have been decided without war. Lincoln was begging the south to come back/not leave and jumping through hoops to proclaim they were not going to ban slavery. The WAR broke out because the south attacked a union fort. Had that not have happened, there most likely never would have been any war. All the other issues like slavery or secession, would have either been settled otherwise or still on going today. It's not a simple concept, just follow along and pay attention.

Utter Rubbish. Nothing would prevent the EPA from going to congress and getting laws made to protect the Ozone layer. Oh wait, they did go to congress and get laws passed. Treaties were even made and ratified and laws were passed for them too.

Check out title 40, part 82 when you get bored sometime. You will fine laws and references to treaties and specific mentions you are looking for.

Lol.. Someone has filled your head with all sorts of bullshit it isn't even funny.

First, no- the foreign minister of Iran does not know the US constitution (and it's definition of treason and the laws passed based on that definition) better than the republicans in the Senate do. The president can only enter into a treaty if the senate consents. This is elementary school civics. The administration can come to some executive agreement, but any future administration can nullify it at will because it is not a treaty. What the foreign minister referenced was a misinterpretation of international law which has a principle that agreements between the head of state are treated treaties in dispute resolution. However, this is not binding to the US because we are both not members of the international court of justice and we have an established process declaring what a valid treaty is.

Second, the treason crap you spewed is wrong on so many levels. First, treason is specifically defined by the Constitution so violations of the Logan act (a law) which do not involve levying war against the united states, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. will not be treason by any stretch of the imagination. Second, the logan act specifically involves unauthorized persons which members of the government are authorized. Further, the advice and consent portions of the constitution imply the senate has a specific right to give advice in foreign relations.

The sole reason no one is not being prosecuted for the letter is because violations of the law only exist in partisan political minds and not in reality or matters of law. Several of the president's strongest detractors could be taken out in one swoop if they were prosecuted for this but the justice department knows any attempts to prosecute will fail.

So are you surprized when Republican voters who shout constitution all the time turn out to have no idea what is in it or what it means ? Of course not, the senators they elect don't even know it !

I'm simply amazed at how ignorant people are about the constitution. Do they not teach this in school any more? When I was in school, we had government and civics coursed in a couple of different years (starting in 8th grade) and the last two runs (11th and 12th grades) were actually requirements to graduate.

I'm game with a constitutional amendment. I don't have any issue with agencies existing without one either. I do have issues with them creating law that was not passed by congress though.

If congress made a law saying that blue onions were illegal and the EPA was empowered to make regulations to enforce it, I have absolutely no problem with the EPA making regulations in order to faithfully execute the law. But when the EPA all the sudden decides white onions should be illegal also, they need congress to pass a law instead of pulling some inter agency manipulations and declaring them covered all the sudden under the blue onion law.

You have repeatedly stated things that are simply wrong when it comes to the Constitution. Either you're intentionally lying, or a complete fucking idiot. I understand.. you have your head buried so far up your conservative dogma's ass you can see it's tonsils, but you're just fucking wrong. It's people like you who are the reason these reports come out saying people in the US have an abysmal knowledge of history.

And because you say so is not a valid reason. Do you have anything of worth to offer or are you just offended because one of your shrines was attacked?

IF the EPA was unconstitutional, it'd already be gone with all the fucking raving sociopathic conservatives in office today.

Who said the EPA was unconstitutional? Do you often build strawmen just to punch down and pretend to insult people? I said there is no constitutional basis for it, there isn't. I did not say it violated anything in the constitution other than making law outside of constitutional process.

What it ultimately comes down to is: uneducated, ignorant, propaganda filled bullshit opinions mean absolutely nothing because the people with them choose to be stupid than a fucking rock and live outside reality.

Were you looking in a mirror when you wrote that? Because it seems like you had yourself in mind.