1) You can’t talk directly to the iTunes store.
2) They will not reverse any charges
3) They are no help at all
4) I was hacked and they told me to file a complaint with the FTC
5) They only respond in form emails
6) So, I wrote the following letter to them

Robert,

I ask you again: please explain how this could have happened to my account?

While I appreciate your company putting the entire onus of the problem on my bank, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Apple has had some part in this fraud, theft, or bug.

I realize that you’re not going to credit my account. Awesome. Expected nothing less. We can deal with that later. But, please — explain to me how I woke up to my itunes downloading a version of High School Musical 3 on my primary PC. I have no children, I have never purchased a full-length movie, and I didn’t download High School Musical 3.

Please do not respond with a suggestion to file a complaint with the FTC. That will hurt my feelings and make me throw my iPhone into the Pacific Ocean.

With no thanks to Apple’s Customer Service (not you personally, of course), I figured out to call my bank, cancel the card and changed my password after searching for other users with similar problems. Since I couldn’t talk to anyone over the phone, I had to figure this all out by myself.

Apparently, I now have to figure out how someone hacked into my itunes store account by myself also, since the info below seemed a one-and-done response to the issue.

The response below, Robert, is unacceptable. The matter is not closed. Please try and help me understand why I should continue to be an Apple, iTunes, iPhone and App Store user after today BEFORE you ask me to fill out your feedback survey.

As of this writing, I have cancelled the card attached to my iTunes store account, alerted my bank (of which I can’t report fraud yet, because the charges haven’t posted), changed my password for the iTunes store and chose NONE under the account info (as you suggested below). What next?

What is your company going to do to deal with my concerns on my account security?

Again, this anger is not directed at you, Robert — just your employer’s policies, procedures, and asinine customer service.

Help me, for the love of everything holy — don’t just tell me to cancel my card and take it up with the FTC.

Best Regards,

Craig

[Caption]

The AMA, which at the time still included a majority of U.S. physicians, led the opposition to Medicare, but did not prevail.
Single-Payer insurance is the way to go — written by a physician.

Goldman Sachs Execs Dumped Stocks Like Crazy

Do Fish Feel Pain?
This one’s for my dad.  We debated this while salt water fishing off Mexico this last weekend.  If you think fish are the only ones that feel pain, let me tell you how my day on the charter boat fishing with my father was.  First, in trying to put SPF 50 on my face, I sprayed sunblock in my eyes.  Twenty minutes later, my right eye turned bloodshot and became irritated.  While this was going on, my transitional lens in my glasses refused to do their job in the hot sun with reflecting Pacific Ocean, and my pupils got sunburned.  REPEAT — My goddamn pupils got sunburned.  Both eyes turned bloodshoot, itchy, refused to dialate, mucus starting running out my nose and every moment looking at anything felt like pain.  This was in the first three hours of a 12-hour trip.  My poor dad just wanted to spend some quiet time on the ocean with his son, wasting away the day catching our nation’s finest aquatic creatures.  Instead, he got this every ten minutes:

ME: I think there’s something wrong with eyes.
DAD: Yeah, they’re red.
ME: Dad..
DAD: {fishing}
ME: Dad?
DAD: {sighs}
ME: Hey Dad?
DAD: Yes, son.
ME: My eyes hurt pretty bad.
DAD: I know.
ME: Hey Dad? 
DAD: {considering getting another beer}
ME: Dad?  Are my eyes red?
DAD: {rewriting the will in his head}
ME: {sniffs} Dad, what side is starboard?

Bill Simmons and Chuck Klostermann on MJ
Loved this. Click the 4th on down or so…it’s 6/29 part 1.  Great discussion on MJ. 

Here are my thoughts on Michael –

TMZ was the hero of the day today.  That’s sad.  If there ever is to be, historically, a day that journalism died, people will look back and remember today as TMZ held on to the MJ death, and every other news agency balked and waited.  I hope TMZ is wrong one day…so wrong that it destroys them.  But today is not that day.  Today is the day Harvey Levin picks up his grande water bottle for his cameras and whiteboard, and smug his way to millions of more dollars in advertising.

_____

Everybody in the world knows Michael Jackson. From Botswana to Belarus, there are 9-year old kids on YouTube (from recent uploads, mind you) moonwalking with a white glove and red-zippered jacket utilizing the choreography from MJ’s heyday. They think it’s hip and new and cool — and that’s fine.

It’s fine because you can talk to 99 percent of the population on this planet, mention Michael Jackson and make a connection. Start something. Share a moment. That’s amazing to me. I don’t know how to say “How’s the weather?” in 192 different and distinct languages. I DO know, however, how to say, “Michael Jackson” in English. Even in 2009, that’s enough to start a conversation, connect. Every time we connect with another human being it means we’re not as alone as we thought and not as scared as we thought. That’s important.

From the first “You’re so gay you like Michael Jackson” joke on the 4th grade playground that I heard, to an hour ago when I read “His last request was to ask if he could be moved to the children’s ward,” MJ was at least a conversation starter, a chance to relate and a moment to share. From his moonwalk on Motown’s anniversary show to the Thriller album being in every household in America in the 80’s (Seriously. Close your eyes. Open that Thriller album with your mind. Do you see Michael and that tiger? I do), he was as loved and respected as he was mocked. He was a genuine talent. And a nut job. And he took a chimp to the Grammys. And Brooke Shields. And hung out with Emmanuel Lewis. And Corey Feldman. And wore military garb as if he was the general of dance.

And bought the Elephant Man’s bones or something.

As human beings we seem to continually move away from each other, stare at our computers in solitude, watch, read, experience and choose to pay attention to more and more segmented and niche experiences. But as we do that and move further and further apart from each other, we can always look back at the last 30 years and have Michael. When Michael was on network TV we all watched. When he had a Pepsi commercial we were all there. When he was accused of…well, you know—we all saw. When MJ was in his heyday, there was never 900 different TV channels, 1000 different podcasts and 4 million different ways to click on “Michael Jackson” on Google search.

We had the water cooler, the dinner table, the classroom, the playground and the backyard bbq.

So, for better or for worse, there will never be another MJ. The jokes will continue, we’ll laugh together, we’ll mock together. We’ll kinda feel better about ourselves. Let’s thank him for that. He made a few bucks off us but he paid for it in many, many ways.

So, as we almost break the internet discussing his passing, crack each other up with jokes at his expense, and yet also share our favorite songs and moments and recount his God-given abilities as a songwriter, musician, dancer and performer – however we do it, it’s ok, because as long as we’re still talking and sharing with each other in 2009 as everything seems to be falling around us…it’s a good thing.

FROM BOINGBOING.NET –