A few days ago I got an item in the mail supposedly offering me a $100 refund as a Unitil customer. The name on the return address was “SmartEnergy,” not Unitil, so it immediately looked fake. It is.
The text inside says:
“Your order is not automatic.
To get started, you must call:
1-800-485-4839
Your REFUND OPTIONS (choose one):
I. Mail me a $100 Visa Prepaid Card
II. Mail me a $100 refund checkSmartEnergy would like to issue you a $100 refund.
The state of New Hampshire has a system where you can sign up to get emergency alerts. In itself, that’s a good thing, but the way it’s run raises red flags. The registration site is on genasys.com, and registering requires providing more personal information than necessary. The probability is close to 1 that Genasys sells this information. It’s also easy to exploit the system to annoy people.
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Derek Thompson has listed four “dark laws of online engagement” that explain a lot of what’s wrong with social media, and perhaps a significant part of what’s wrong with America. He discusses their effect on people, especially young men, who are socially isolated. I’d like to look at the way they distort the information that we get on the Internet.
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The towns of Auburn and Troy, New Hampshire, have set up “task force agreements” with ICE. According to the Boston Globe, they let the local police ” interrogate people suspected of being present in the country illegally and arrest those accused of violating immigration laws.” The ICE standard of “suspicion” includes looking foreign or speaking with a foreign accent. Accusation (by whom?) is an abnormally low bar for arrest; probable cause is normally required. The Troy police have made at least a dozen arrests for ICE. The towns of Colebrook and Carroll, in the northern part of the state, also have entered agreements with ICE, as have the New Hampshire State Police.
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Recently Avelo Airlines announced it would no longer provide ICE with flights to transport abductees. CEO Andrew Levy wrote: “We moved a portion of our fleet into a government program which promised more financial stability but placed us in the center of a political controversy. … The program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.” Avelo didn’t admit that negative publicity motivated its decision, but businesses never like to say such things.
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