My new favorite local blog: Envy America

I don't know who the author is or why he/she chose this particular slant for a blog, but I'm getting a kick out of the new Envy America.

Well, we tried

Google chooses Kansas City, Kansas. Big thanks to the people who tried to make this happen for Greensboro, especially the city staff who took it seriously and made a valiant effort, but certainly to others who selflessly wanted it for no reasons other than it would have been good for Greensboro.

The new Greensboro 101

The new Greensboro 101 launched today. It continues the tradition of bringing local people-generated content into an efficient and democratic presentation.

New features include:

• New Design. Color schemes and design elements that better assist the mind and eye in using the site. Since not every user has the same preferences, also added multiple design styles from which users can choose -- available through the "styles" button on the right side of each page.
• Event Calendar. Added an event calendar. Rich in features, it deserves its own post -- which is coming, but multiple channel distribution, mapping to Google maps, press release announcer, Twitter feed, and category filtering are a few of the features.
• Better Ergonomics. Layout and navigational tools that minimize the effort needed in thought and muscle to move through the content. More of a sense of flowing through the content.
• Smarter. From better calculating how to rank recommended news and blog items to remembering which tabs users prefer to have open when they visit the site, there are several unseen but important improvements to the site's intelligence. If you never notice the particulars, that's even better but you will hopefully sense that the site offers a refined experience.
• Better Under the Hood. I've used the lightweight but powerful jQuery JavaScript library to build much of the user interface. Appearance and navigation should be more reliable, more stable and more compatible across multiple user platforms. I've also made better use of caching and optimized database queries to make the site load faster.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Leave them in the comments here or email me at curator@greensboro101.com.

The annual Time Warner Cable dance, in which I bend over...

GREENSBORO, NC -- Today was my annual over-the-phone dance with Time Warner Cable to negotiate my monthly bill for cable TV and Internet access. This year's engagement was started, as always, with TWC attempting to implement an outrageous rate increase. This time, TWC had the audacity to send me a flyer announcing:

We're pleased to extend you (sic) ADDITIONAL SAVINGS...

...followed by a bill with a 50% increase.

Gee! Thanks Time Warner Cable! Any more of your generosity and I'll be in the poor house.

Anyway, after 34 minutes and three customer service representatives, I managed to negotiate a rate that is only 13% higher than last year. They won.

I despise being held hostage by this gouging company with their mediocre service. Good thing the free market has provided me with other options... oh, wait. Never mind.

2 minute trash options breakdown

Sometimes one of the most useful things a journalist can do is give you a quick yet informative summary of an otherwise involved topic. The News & Record's Amanda Lehmert offers up a nice and concise breakdown of the trash disposal options presented to Greensboro city council yesterday.

City Councilor Vaughan on Time Warner Cable: "We're like a sitting duck."

GREENSBORO, NC -- There was some interesting discussion by the Greensboro City Council at Tuesday's meeting on opposing proposed state legislation that would limit municipalities' ability to build public broadband infrastructure. Best line? Nancy Vaughan on Time Warner Cable's service to Greensboro: "We're like a sitting duck."

Council ultimately voted 6 to 3 to adopt a resolution opposing the state bill.

Video here. Discussion starts at the 5:40 mark.

Debunking voter fraud myths; Binker breaks it down

Mark Binker of the News & Record takes a look at the validity of recent claims of voting fraud in a fine piece of journalism.

Smell that?

Mmmmmm. Can you smell what the Roch's got cooking?

Damn right local is hard. But what I lack in brains I make up for in persistence.

All... most... there...

Heroes

GREENSBORO, NC -- From the News & Record:

Officer C.J. St. Pierre arrived and detected a strong burning odor, like an electrical shortage, he said. Lights were on, but no one answered the door. Pierre saw a blinking light from a carbon monoxide detector and called for backup.

Officers M.R. Leahey, A.L. Dellinger, W.F. Sizemore and Cpl. C.E. Tuck arrived and some of them kicked in the door. The normally odorless, tasteless gas was so strong that it burned their eyes and throats.

They found the 9-year-old and 7-year-old girls semiconscious in one room. The 3-year-old boy was hiding under bed covers in another. The boy was more alert, but the girls were lethargic. Tuck awakened them by flashing light in their eyes.

 And the neighbor, Essam Yousef, who bothered to call 9-1-1 when he heard the alarm beeping. 

Greensboro city council campaign contributors

GREENSBORO, NC -- (Hat tip Ed Cone). George Hartzman has entered into a spreadsheet  the campaign contributions to Greensboro city council members. I have taken the liberty of putting it into a web-accessible Google doc.

(Full page version)

More word-for-word press release regurgitation from the News & Record

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record continues its sad bad practice of publishing press releases as news with a byline of "staff reports." This one is copied nearly word-for-word from a press release from the North Carolina Attorney General's office, the copied portions are highlighted.
-------------------------

Some 21,879 people filed complaints in 2010 with the Consumer Protection Division of the N.C. Attorney General's Office.

The overall number of complaints dropped slightly from the 22,665 complaints received in 2009. The Attorney General's Office said the top two areas — health care and lending — saw increase in complaint volume last year.

Here are the top 10 [...] complaints for 2010:

1. Health care
Health care led this list for the sixth straight year. Complaints were about health insurance, medical providers and health products and services. Common complaints include getting charged money for supposedly free trials of weight loss products, medical billing or collection practices and overcharging for medical services.

2. Lending
Complaints often include problems with high interest rates, charges for late or missed payments, adjustable rate mortgages, prepayment penalties and loan fees. Consumers with foreclosure issues or who have fallen for a foreclosure assistance or loan modification scam are included here.

3. Do Not Call/Unwanted telemarketing calls
Among the top sources of complaints are offers for credit cards with lower interest rates, free grants, or debt consolidation services. Many of these pitches are made using illegal robo calls that ask consumers to press a number to speak with a representative.

4. Telemarketing fraud
Scammers often located outside the U.S. try to lure consumers into giving up their money and their personal information. Some of the most popular telemarketing schemes pitch bogus lower credit card rates, international lottery tickets, advance fee loans, government grants, identity theft protection, and phony prizes or sweepstakes.

5. Credit and collections
Complaints about credit repair scams, debt collectors and identity theft were common issues. Complaints about scams that promise to fix your credit or settle your debts for an upfront fee are increasingly common. Consumers also complain about threatening calls from debt collectors as well as calls about debts that aren’t really theirs.

6. Motor vehicles
Common problems include mechanical problems with used cars, difficulties obtaining a car title when the dealership has gone out of business, and failure to honor warranties. People also complain about pricing, improper diagnosis, unauthorized repairs, and slow repair jobs.

7. Home furnishings
Consumers often contacted the Attorney General's Office us [sic] when an item they’ve paid for never arrives, or when their piece of furniture arrives damaged or defective. Many of these complaints come from out-of-state consumers who placed orders with North Carolina retailers by telephone or online.

8. Home repair
Most consumers who complain are dissatisfied with work done on their homes. Other common sources of complaints are contractors who abandon the job after getting paid, miss deadlines, or go over budget. There are also scam artists who target homeowners, especially seniors, attempting to talk them into a series of expensive and unnecessary repairs.

9. Television services
Many of those [sic] consumers complained about extended contracts and hidden fees with satellite provider DIRECTV, problems that were addressed by a settlement reached with the company in December.

10. Telecommunications
Many people complain that bundled packages for phone, television and Internet service don’t provide the savings they were expecting. People also have problems with cell phone bills, poor cell service, and the cramming of unauthorized charges onto their phone bills.

To file a complaint or get tips on avoiding problems, visit ncdoj.gov or call (877) 566-7226.

But, how do you really feel? Lensinger on lazy TV newspeople

The photog with a way with words vents about lazy TV reporters.

Still want to be a TV reporter? Cool, go find a story no one else has, convince a reluctant witness to talk on camera, melt the Rain-X off my lens with your scintillating presence. I’ll sing your praises from on high, when I’m not following you into the fire. Otherwise, go sell Mary Kay, real estate or perhaps your own plasma.

Thigpen takes on secret deeds

(Hat tip: Ed Cone)

GUILFORD COUNTY, NC -- Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen stands up for the people.

“To me these issues with MERS are simple. Are major banking conglomerates going to tell the truth or not; and are we going choose to have two standards of justice in America: one for Big Money and the other for the rest of us?

Read more.

WGHP MyFox8 brings local blogger's plight to light

MAYODAN, NC -- A Las Vegas law firm is targeting bloggers for alleged copyright infringement on behalf of the Denver Post and a blogger from Mayodan finds himself caught in their crosshairs. It's a big deal with implications for free speech, fair use and copyright protections that has gone unnoticed by local media and bloggers, until now. Good for WGHP for bringing it to our attention.

Sxip Shirey: "Moon in her belly"

Sxip Shirey.

XMG Guilford County website files released

GREENSBORO, NC -- I received a response to my public records request from Guilford County. I had requested the website files as provide by XMG to the county in their effort to produce a new website for the County. Those files were provided to me on CD today. The website was built for a Microsoft web server. I use a different server environment, so I am unable to offer a true end-user view of what was provided to the County. Nonetheless, if you are interested, you can see the files here.* Please be advised, these are the files delivered to me by the County, I do not know if XMG would agree that they constitute the entirety of their work.

If someone has access to an ASP server (which would properly display all of these files) I will gladly share the CD or you can request them from the county. And speaking of getting files from the County, although their response was not particularly speedy, I do want to thank County staff for eventually providing these files. There was some confusion about whether or not these files were public or confidential and I appreciate the legal staff's willingness to learn a little about the nature of websites and coming to understand why files like these do constitute a public record.

* [These files may be removed in the future.]

WGHP MyFox8 making it up

GREENSBORO, NC -- "School Test Results Skyrocket After Church Partnership" shouts the headline on WGHP's website. The unnamed "staff writer" explains:

Several principals were looking for possible "faith partners" Thursday after the success of a similar program at Smith High School. Smith has partnered with nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church for the past two years after receiving a $100,000 state grant.

Several principals? Really? Like who? Ah, never mind, let's get to the meat of the story, those "skyrocketing" improvements.

Dr. Noah Rogers, Smith High principal, said graduation rates have skyrocketed from 55 percent to 80 percent, fewer students are getting suspended and the attendance rate is up.

55 percent to 80 percent in just two years? Wow! Fabulous... but not true. According to the Guilford County Schools, since the church program has been in place, graduation rates at Smith went from 73 percent to 80 percent (we don't have the rates for this year, obviously). While still a nice increase in graduation rates are they attributable to partnering with the church? Smith has seen steady improvement in graduation rates since 2006, including an 8 point jump from 2007 to 2008 -- before the church program. "Graduation rates improve before church partnership" doesn't have the same ring, I suppose.

But what about the story's headline about those skyrocketing test scores? According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Smith's annual yearly progress showed year-over-year improvement from 2009 to 2010 in math and reading test scores, but not inconsistent with the kinds of improvements seen in years past, before the church program. The 10 point increase in proficiency in math last year is fantastic, but so was the 10 point increase in reading proficiency in 2008, before the church program.

Bottom line, the Fox8 story incorrectly reported graduation data and wrongly treats the improvements at Smith as attributable to the church program, ignoring that Smith has seen similar improvements prior to the church program. There is no reason to tout the church program as the reason for Smith's continuing academic improvement and so this story joins others from WGHP where they occasionally go off the rails and just make stuff up (here, here, here, here, here and here.)

News & Record predicts the future

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record regurgitates more public relations hype and ends up sounding idiotic in the process.

Tonight's screening of "Rise" will have its largest audience in Greensboro.

Although the "report" also says the film is going to be screened tonight in 500 other theaters throughout the country, somehow the News & Record can divine which one will have the largest audience. Amazing!

"If they support the organization we will come after them"

From Wired:

Barr’s ideas about WikiLeaks went beyond attacks on their infrastructure. He wrote in a separate document that WikiLeaks was having trouble getting money because its payment sources were being blocked. “Also need to get people to understand that if they support the organization we will come after them,” he wrote. “Transaction records are easily identifiable.”

As an idea that Barr knew was being prepared for a major U.S. bank, the suggestion is chilling.

"Social media is a significant problem that should worry everyone."

(Hat tip: Fecund Stench)

Security experts employed by the U.S. government and the likes of Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce are actively tying online "nicknames to real names and other personal data."

Why? Because, to them...

"Social media is a significant problem that should worry everyone."

 UPDATE: Here is the founder of the company that employs these practices:

I am only one removed from the President of the United States, I know multiple decision makers in both major intelligence community organizations, and my company has software installed in about 1/4 of all fortune 500 companies.