I wrote the following to NPR today:

I was so shocked by what the Congressman from North Carolina had to say on TOTN this afternoon, that I turned the radio off rather than hear more. He was billed by the host as fiscally conservative. What I heard, however, was a very right-wing social conservative who branded the Davis-Bacon legislation as a "sop to the unions" and who wants to cut funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. What I see here is a ruse: the right-wing folks using the screen of paying for the war and Katrina by trying to attack programs and legislation that they want out of the way anyway. What's next for these folks? Cuts to programs for the poor unless they are through faith-based organizations?

There is no problem with being fiscally conservative and looking to see what the country can afford rather than continuing to run up the deficit as this Congress has done. But don't hide behind that to foment your social goals.

Ebay owns PayPal. Until not long ago, you could sell stuff on Ebay and collect funds on PayPal via direct bank transfers with no fees. Then they tightened it so that you could not sell more than $1,000 in any month without incurring fees. Then it was $500. Mind you, this was for a Personal account, the casual seller, not the big boys and girls who make a living on Ebay. So, I always listed my stuff for sale that I would take PayPal (but only a direct transfer and no credit cards) since I did not want a business account nor did I want to incur fees.

Over the last two months, I have sold all my model railroad stuff. My first shock was to find out that there was a limit to how much I could collect in a month without being forced to upgrade to a Premier or Business account or having buyers' payments refused. I do not remember getting any notice from PayPal that they were going to a $500 limit. Well, I had no choice but to upgrade my account since I had lots of sales. This means that PayPal collects $0.30 per transaction and 2.9% on all funds paid (which include payments for shipping) regardless if the funds come from a direct bank transfer or from a credit card. I was told I could downgrade my account once and only once back to individual and had planned to do this since I only sell a minor amount of stuff normally and would not hit the $500 monthly limit.

About three weeks ago, I listed another model railroad item with the standard language I have been using regarding accepting PayPal, but no credit card payments. Ebay sent me an automated message letting me know they could not list my item since that if I accepted PayPal, I had to accept all forms of PayPal payments. Here is part of their email response:

"Effective August 19th, 2005, sellers who offer PayPal as a payment option on eBay (either via logos or through text in the item description) must accept *all forms* of PayPal payment including account balance, bank transfer, e-checks and credit cards.

"For example, it is *not* permitted to state the following:

""I only accept cash transfer via PayPal (no credit cards or echecks)."

""My Paypal account is not set up to accept payments funded by credit cards or debit cards."

"Sellers must have a Premier or Business PayPal Account or be willing to upgrade from a Personal PayPal Account to a Premier or Business Account if sellers receive a credit card payment. Sellers may not communicate to buyers that they accept, or will not accept, specific forms of PayPal payment."

So, here is the Catch 22: You can have a Personal account (no fees for direct transfers of funds of $500 or less in a month), BUT when anyone who is a buyer charges a purchase on a credit card, you are forced to upgrade to a Premier account and must accept this form of payment----and be charged fees on any and all transactions from that time forward and forever more.

So:
1. Ebay gets to collect from you twice (listing and sales fees and then payment percentage).
2. No one seems to notify members about changes in policy
3. The Personal account at PayPal is a sham

Ah, well.

The owner’s manual for my People’sCar SUV is about 300 pages long. You would think that with as much detail as it includes on being careful not to drive off cliffs when going off road, that it would be a wealth of information on useful topics as well. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

I turned into my driveway and a yellow warning flashed on the screen in front of the steering wheel accompanied by a screaming warning sound: “Tyre Monitoring Function Has Faulted.” Worried, I got out of the car, inspected all four tires, got back in the car and toggled through the myriad sensors using the handy-dandy buttons and scrolling wheel imbedded in the steering wheel and could find nothing wrong. All “tyres” showed “OK.” I called the local dealer who told me to not believe my eyes that the tires were fine since “an eight pound difference” can set off the sensors. You know, if a tire is eight pounds too low, I think I should be able to see that. But, I took the pressure of each tire and each was 40 psi. Okay, I thought, let’s see what the owner’s manual says about this.

Under “tire monitoring” are a couple of pages telling me what different signals from the system meant. There is flat tire, really flat tire, smashed wheel and other useful warnings all accompanied by their special red or yellow icons. However, there is no mention of the message I received. I looked carefully through the length and breadth of the manual to no avail. Nothing even close. In another call to the dealer, the service manager told me that even the dealers did not have a manual showing all the messages. They are instructed if anything looks wrong, hook the car to a computer and the computer will tell them what to check and what to do.

Later that day, with my ignition running and my headlights on, I opened the driver’s door. A warning (and the same screaming tone) said (with a picture of a light): Side Lights On. Naturally, the manual has no mention of what side lights are nor is there any mention of this warning and when it should be displayed.

Oh, one final wonder. Most of the exhibits in the manual show German examples of what things are supposed to look like. These illustrations are especially prevalent in the section on using the GPS navigation system. I may have not learned much from the manual, but I do know not to go too close to the edge of a precipice.