In the latest example of a corporation trying to nickel and dime its customers, the telecom giant has announced a new “$2 payment convenience fee” for people who, well, want to pay their bill.

Basically if you are the kind of person who can’t commit to auto-paying your phone bill and like to pay online or on your phone, well, your bill is going to be going up two bucks a month starting on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, January 15.

Yeah, there are ways to go month-to-month without incurring the fee—electronic check, a Verizon gift card, paper check in the mail, or paying in person at a Verizon store — but if you want to pay your bill online or on your phone, well, be ready to part with two hundred pennies.

So, why is Verizon doing this? According to Big Red, “The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options in these channels [the still free options] and is designed to address costs incurred by us for only those customers who choose to make single bill payments in alternate payment channels (online, mobile, telephone).”

So…basically Verizon (which is not exactly in the poor house) found a place where they could wring out a few extra pennies and is doing just that. What comes after this? Fees for accessing more than 100 cell towers in a month?

Verizon needs no discussion or approval to add or increase fees?

UPDATE: Verizon caved.

A 6-year-old Grant County boy has been accused of first-degree sexual assault after playing “doctor” with two 5-year-old friends. Now, a federal lawsuit has been filed against the prosecutor, who attorneys said is trying to force the boy to admit guilt.
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Attorneys for the parents of the 6-year-old, who is being referred to as “D,” said that [prosecuting DA Lisa] Riniker has gone too far by bringing a felony sex charge against a first-grader for touching a 5-year-old girl inappropriately while playing doctor last fall.
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In justification for the charge, Riniker is quoted in the lawsuit saying “the Legislature could have put an age restriction in the statute … the legislature did no such thing.” The lawsuit also alleges the charges were brought because the 5-year-old is the daughter of a high-ranking official in Grant County.

Another article said the boy, if found guilty, would be put on the sex offender list when he turns 18.

What about all the baby boys touching their mother’s breasts? Clearly, they should be prosecuted. Ignorance of the law (or how to read or talk) is no excuse!

Remember the good old days when the ‘govern’ part of government actually meant our elected reps actually ‘govern’ed rather than just spew no compromise, take-no-prisoners blowhard rhetoric? Good times, good times…

It’s one week from a drop-dead moment for the supercommittee, and the powerful panel is at risk of failing, adding yet another black mark on what is already the most unpopular Congress in modern history.

There isn’t a shred of bill language circulating publicly and no scent of a bipartisan deal before a Nov. 23 deadline to show the public how a panel granted such sweeping authority is trying to solve America’s great fiscal crisis.

Even worse for Republicans, there seems to be a growing civil war on the right over the idea of tax revenues. Rank-and-file conservatives have always been suspicious of the supercommittee, and they’ve started to go public with their complaints, warning against the tax revenue proposals coming from their own party.
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Supercommittee co-chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), speaking bluntly to a closed House Republican meeting Tuesday said any deal that the panel produces will either be an “abject [failure] or a ‘kiss your sister agreement.’”

Oddly enough, a wide majority of Americans expect them to fail.

For a change, use this poll and comment space to discuss whether those who can most afford it should be treated the same as the rest of us or should they be treated differently. In other words, ignore the issue of raising taxes vs. cutting spending. That has been discussed to death. This is purely about who pays for what taxes there are. Tied up with this is keeping or eliminating tax loopholes and other things that allow the wealthy to pay less taxes. Discuss!

President Obama will propose that people earning more than $1 million a year pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class earners to help reduce the soaring budget deficit, according to administration officials.

Obama will call the plan the “Buffett rule” after billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, a supporter of his who recently called the tax system unfair, noting that it lets him pay a lower rate than his secretary does.

The plan would replace the complicated alternative minimum tax, which was enacted decades ago to ensure that the wealthy paid at least some income taxes, according to the officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

And this helps us how…

In its legal struggle with Google (GOOG), Oracle (ORCL) is arguing for a new understanding of copyright that would make all software, even open source, de-facto proprietary.

As FossPatents reports, Oracle is arguing that Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and program names, even subroutine names, should have the same copyright protection as the underlying code. And that such protection should be absolute.

In other words, Oracle could not only claim copyright over the mySQL database, but over the interfaces that connect it to other programs, and the names of the routines within the program.

This would make interoperability – a key to tying software together – impossible without the express permission and (perhaps payment to) the copyright holder. And that permission could be withheld, or taken back, at the copyright holder’s whim.
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In essence, all software would become proprietary, to the copyright holder, which could absolutely control everything done in its name – its whole ecosystem – vetoing any connection to current software for the length of the copyright term, which can now mean a century or more.