Day after big debit fee hike, BofA homepage fails

By Mark Frauenfelder at 9:53 am Friday, Sep 30

Christopher Maag of Credit.com write:

Bank of America’s homepage was down Friday morning, a day after the megabank announced that it will begin charging customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. Instead of the bank’s normal site, visitors receive a notice stating “Home Page Temporarily Unavailable.”

Instead of the bank’s normal site, visitors receive a notice stating “Home Page Temporarily Unavailable,” followed by the message, “We’re sorry, but some of our pages are temporarily unavailable.” The site indicates that the bank’s online banking system is still working, but a number of commenters to Credit.com’s website say that it is not.

Day After Big Debit Fee Hike, BofA Homepage Fails

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Breast cancer survivor forced into invasive patdown by TSA, even after submitting to backscatter imaging scan

By Xeni Jardin at 11:34 am Saturday, Oct 1

My longtime friend Scott Beale, who runs Laughing Squid, says:

My wife Lori Dorn, who has breast cancer, tells her story about a TSA agent at JFK on Friday who required her to submit to a pat down due to her breast implants, even though she had an identification card for the implants that is used to prove that the implants are an actual medical device. The TSA agent would not let Lori show her the card.

Lori's first-person account begins:

At what point does the need for security eclipse human dignity and compassion?

Yesterday I went through the imaging scanner at JFK Terminal 4 for my Virgin America flight to San Francisco. Evidently they found something, because after the scan, I was asked to step aside to have my breast area examined. I explained to the agent that I was a breast cancer patient and had a bilateral mastectomy in April and had tissue expanders put in to make way for reconstruction at a later date.

I told her that I was not comfortable with having my breasts touched and that I had a card in my wallet that explains the type of expanders, serial numbers and my doctor’s information (pictured) and asked to retrieve it. This request was denied. Instead, she called over a female supervisor who told me the exam had to take place. I was again told that I could not retrieve the card and needed to submit to a physical exam in order to be cleared. She then said, “And if we don’t clear you, you don’t fly” loud enough for other passengers to hear. And they did. And they stared at the bald woman being yelled at by a TSA Supervisor.

To my further dismay, my belongings, including my computer, were completely out of sight. I had no choice but to allow an agent to touch my breasts in front of other passengers.

Emphasis mine. What the hell, people? Read Lori's post here. There are some really good comments at Scott Beale's G+.

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Buying a new Alternative Tentacles tshirt after 25+ years

I bought a new Alternative Tentacles tshirt to replace the one I bought in the early 1980s. I didn't realize how faded it had become until I placed them side by side. I like the way the old one looks and feels better than the new one. The new one will improve in a few years.

The design is from 1979 by the great Winston Smith.

Alternative Tentacles tshirt

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Epigenetics: Maybe not that big of a deal, after all, says study

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Gumby turns himself in after failed robbery attempt

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Japan: Kan feared Tokyo would become uninhabitable after Fukushima nuclear crisis

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Japan: Kan feared Tokyo would become uninhabitable after Fukushima nuclear crisis

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After Hurricane Katrina, years of post-traumatic stress: a first-person account

Photo: Reuters

My friend Susannah Breslin, a periodic guest contributor to Boing Boing, has written a piece for the Atlantic about her experience as a survivor of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

When I did return to New Orleans, the city was ravaged, its great oak trees broken, its buildings crumbling, a refrigerator stranded on a dark sidewalk like a ghost. My neighborhood was deserted. A sign on the front of the house where I had lived indicated the roof shingles, which had come off during the storm, contained asbestos. I was in the 20 percent of the city that hadn't flooded, but portions of the roof had come off during the storm.

Inside, the rain had spawned black, green, and yellow mold that crawled the walls. I could see the sky from the living room through the exposed wooden slats of the structure's bones. The ceiling was in the bed. In the backyard, a towering pecan tree that had stood for probably 100 years had been uprooted from the ground and tossed aside like a toothpick by a bored giant.

I took the boxes and my papers from the mostly undisturbed kitchen. From the rest of the house, I picked and chose from the things that didn't appear to have mold or asbestos on them. The following day, I drove out of the city. There was a boat in the middle of the street. The houses gaped, slack-jawed and empty-faced. I drove across the eastbound span of the Twin Span Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, and parts of the westbound span of the bridge were simply gone. I drove an hour through a destroyed forest, and when I looked up in the sky, I tried to imagine a thing so big that it could destroy so much.

After Hurricane Katrina, Years of Post-Traumatic Stress

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LoJack makers sued over privacy invasion after tracking stolen laptop

Illustration: Sean Gladwell, Shutterstock. See more like this.

A schoolteacher who bought a stolen laptop from one of her students ($60, with a scraped-off serial number) is suing the makers of LoJack, the pre-installed software used by investigators to recover it. Absolute Software failed to have the case summarily dismissed; a judge ruled that its tracking of her, including emails and recorded sex acts, may violate wiretapping laws. [Wired]

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Alaska: Mother convicted of child abuse after taping “hot sauce torture video” for Dr. Phil Show

A mother in Alaska has been convicted of abusing her adopted Russian son by "pouring hot sauce into the crying child's mouth and not allowing him to spit it out for more than a minute," then forcing him to stand in a cold shower.

She staged the incident as an audition tape for a segment of the Dr. Phil show titled "Mommy Confessions," and ordered her ten-year-old daughter to record the video on a Flip handheld digital video camcorder.

Her bid for TV fame was successful: "Days later, she was on her way to Los Angeles to be on the show," and the episode aired in November, 2010.

The child is now in therapy for a psychological disorder.

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