Ed Morrissey on the announcement that AT&T plans to buy T-Mobile:

I’ve had poor experiences with AT&T over two decades in an industry heavily reliant on telecoms, both in billing and service.

Amen. When it comes to my experiences and those of people I know, the behavior of AT&T as corporate bully knows no bounds. Nearly every billing experience I have heard about comes down to: we are a big company; we don’t care about the facts; submit to this jaw-droppingly unfair resolution of the situation or see your credit ruined.

I’ve heard of them literally acting as bandits, assessing charges for services never requested or rendered. Our experience consisted largely of their making errors in their favor every single billing cycle and forcing us into a one-hour call every month to get that $5 or $10 taken off. Which they would cheerfully do. I have long suspected this is a corporate scheme — fraud on an overwhelming scale — stemming from a conscious decision to slightly overcharge each customer each month and reverse any such overcharge only when a customer has navigated a complex system of menus and holding times.

After one such bizarre situation I swore off AT&T “forever” and went with . . . Cingular. Imagine my joy upon hearing of the AT&T/Cingular merger, when I learned I was once again an involuntary AT&T customer.

So I know how a lot of T-Mobile customers feel today.

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Here’s your Tuesday palate cleanser.  Sure, he isn’t quite as polished as Johnny Mac from about a month ago, and his shots are not quite as sick as Johnny’s.  And you have to assume that it is heavily edited.  On the other hand, this kid is twelve years old, and it’s all damn impressive even discounting those factors.

H/t: The Blaze.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

Aaron got a double link yesterday from Hot Air and Instapundit. (Nicely done, Aaron!) I was working and wasn’t watching to see how the site survived it. Did it go down? Slow down? How did it do? Give us your feedback.

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Come for the outrage, but stay for the awkwardness (and doggies)!  Yesterday, on the 150th anniversary of Alexander H. Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech, Althouse and Meade find a Civil War memorial desecrated by Wisconsin Protesters:

Of course what makes the video worth watching beyond the initial outrage, is seeing Meade and Althouse confront a few protesters.  Early on the guy in the hat says “that’s why we need better teachers” after the guy in the tie said something about lack of education.  That’s an interesting comment.  First, um, how much education do you need to have to figure out you need to honor those who fought and died for freedom?  The issue here is not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of values.  Does he mean to suggest that the teachers need to wholly raise our children, teaching them morality as well as giving them knowledge?  Shouldn’t teaching children right from wrong be done by parents, not merely because of the concept of parental privacy but because it creates a danger that the unique self-interests of the teaching profession would shape the values of an entire generation?  Yes, yes, we idealize the teaching profession, but if liberals truly value diversity, they shouldn’t be seeking to make everyone believe exactly the same things.

I mean either that or that whole “diversity” thing is a crock.

Second, if this proves we need better teachers, then doesn’t that mean we need to get rid of the ones we have now?  And how are we going to do that with such powerful public sector unions?

And of course the next part is just a little bit funny as Meade and Althouse reveal that these people use terms like “Workers of the World Unite” and “Teabagger” while professing to have no idea what those terms meant.  And then of course the guy in the tie feels the need to press Meade on the exact definition of “Teabagger.”  You have to wonder if the guy in the tie was really ignorant, or playing dumb to mess with them. Meade was on record that they were “stupid like a fox.”

Seriously, I know the next Pulitzer she would be eligible for is a year away, but I think Althouse deserves at least a serious nomination.  There is no better source of information on the Wisconsin protests.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]