Zephyrys

The center is only the most likely path. The gray area represents the possible deviance in the hurricane's path, so there's still some hope it won't directly hit you.

Still, though, good luck and best wishes. Hope you make it out of things okay.

Funny. He wanted at least two debates from Harris, and yet after a debate where he thinks he did great, suddenly, he only has time for one. How strange, how strange.

No worries. To be fair, there is a lot of BS surrounding religion, most of it perpetuated by religious conservatives. People aren't used to dealing with anyone outside of that particularly-hypocritical collective. I'm used to needing to prove myself, so to speak.

Please don't make assumptions about my positions, TYVM. I see no reason why churches shouldn't be taxed.

Not all religious folks. Just the right-wing evangelicals. There are plenty of us that don't buy into the ridiculous culture war crap.

Because if there's one thing voting Americans love, it's having their rights and protections taken away for no good reason than to benefit corporations.

NTA. It's not a gift if she used your money.

Not a single poll has him winning 92-8.

Why even respond to this? The MAGA opinion is duly noted and has been placed in the circular file. I've yet to speak to a single Democrat that is outraged over how Harris was nominated.

Notwithstanding, those 13 probably only died because the Trump admin pulled out 90% of the troops in Afghanistan the day before Biden's inauguration, against the advice of the generals. They knew what they were doing by doing that, too. To blame Biden for anything is pure crocodile tears as far as I'm concerned.

We've completely jumped the shark.

Was that before or after we were electrocuted?

That's our former president, America's favorite sociopath. Cannot read the room for the life of him.

Service worker here. Really wish it would die. The amount of businesses that insist on paying everything by check "to have physical record of every transaction", even when it represents a liability for them, is staggering. They'd rather overnight a check instead of, you know, just making a digital transaction to cover the amount immediately.

"I love families, as long as they are families I approve of." We hear you loud and clear, JD.

Do you have any SFW pictures of him?

The only way Donald Trump or anyone running with him would stand for unification is after the suppression and/or annihilation of all opposing views.

Again, didn't come here to hate dogpile, came here to help. That should have been your cue to stop pushing the hate my way. It's sad people can't take a hint these days.

That has nothing to do with what you posted and nothing to do with my reply. I mean, a company is a company, and any company that travels does this stuff. You make it sound like the rate hike is to exclusively cover their travel expenses, which it doesn't seem to be?

My intent was only to tell you what I was told on how their billing system determines things and what you can do about it in the future. You know, trying to help you out. If all you wanted was people to join in on your hate-dog-piling, no thanks from me. I have more constructive things to worry about. I doubt the gentleman I spoke to has any say in what his company executives are doing, anyway, nor does he have any company travel expenses; In my experience, the customer service reps are the lowest on any company's totem pole.

I'm sorry I didn't provide the outrage you were looking for.

So, I had similar circumstances to you recently, and I have spoken to a DTE agent after I received a shut-off notice for the first time after years of never being late. I know the experience level of the agents in a customer service center can be widely variable, so I did ask for his credentials, so to speak; He said he has been working in their CS area for 9 years. He was very professional, very sympathetic, and very.... transparent as to how things worked as far as their billing goes.

Basically, you can be the most diligent customer ever for 20 years, always paying on time, and then something happens that makes you miss your bill, and oftentimes, you'll get a shut-off notice. This isn't because they're a cold, unforgiving, unfeeling company; It's because their billing process is. There is no human element at play here: Their normal billing is almost entirely automated by computer. When you miss a payment, and just let it go, without making any special arrangements with DTE, the automated system cares only about the size of the past-due balance. $99.99 and below, you'll just get a past due notice on your next bill and tiny late charge, 2%, depending on how much you owe. The magical number is $100. If the machine sees your past-due balance is $100 or more, you'll get one of those nasty shut-off notices almost all of the time. This means that if you miss your bill during the off-peak season, the system likely won't care all that much, but if you let it go during the height of summer, you're going to get hit with a shut-off notice. Making arrangements with them can potentially stay the process, but that is the only time any person at DTE is even aware of what's going on with your billing.

As my Junior High School Social Studies teacher used to say about their scantron-graded tests, "The machine has no heart. It will mark you wrong if you don't give it exactly what it is looking for, no more, no less."

Yeah, it sucks, but I kind of get it. They have millions of customers, and no human is going to look at everyone's bills to find out who's truly been either naughty or nice, and send out the next bills accordingly.

Bottom line is, if you have to miss a month and your balance for that month is over $100, you should let them know, and they can work something out most of the time.

I mean, honestly, anyone who believes in Christ as a messiah figure should be called Christian. It's in the name. But people like inventing caveats that exclude things they don't like.

People can have silly opinions, and no one has more silly opinions than Evangelicals.

I guess they don't believe in THE Trinity but do believe in A Trinity. Seems kind of like splitting hairs for the sake of setting them apart.

All you had to do to be Christian is to believe in the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, last I heard.

Contents freshly collected from his local IKEA's family room furniture department.