Don't order appliances from Best Buy

So the washing machine at murksouth died for the third time two and a half weeks ago, which means it's time to order a new one. And that's fair enough, the broken one is a bit old at this point, and well past the "repair this/replace this" border as described by Consumer Reports, and all that.

I shopped around a bit and ended up ordering from Best Buy, for delivery last Wednesday, which was the soonest their online form would give me. Wednesday came and it didn't happen; I found email in my junk folder saying "we've cancelled your delivery, call to reschedule." An hour-fifteen or so later, I was finally off the phone with some idea of why delivery had been revoked - their computer system had somehow managed not to include sales tax, which put a stop on the order - and got delivery rescheduled for this Wednesday.

This morning I got mail saying they'd cancelled delivery AGAIN, and to call their support number to reschedule AGAIN, and when I did, after 15 minutes on hold, the person I got didn't know anything, couldn't tell me anything, couldn't transfer me to someone who would, and wouldn't take my case number from last time to see whether there was any relationship. The closest she could give me to an answer is that somehow the delivery date was "too close to" the order date, which is pretty laughable even if you consider it to have been ordered last week, because week-later delivery is not exactly a rush job.

And all she'd do was re-dispatch it for delivery to some delivery agent who would eventually send me email. Supposedly. Not being interested in playing this game a third time in order to still have no washing machine, I told them to cancel the order and refund my money.

So, 35 minutes on the phone later, it's no washer last week, no washer today, no washer tomorrow, and no idea why not. I'll be talking to Sears and Home Depot in a few minutes - they're not great, but they've managed to deliver appliances on time in the past with pleasant regularity. The moral of the story: don't order appliances for delivery from Best Buy. So noted.

eta: Oh, I think I get it.

I think I ordered last year's model and they don't actually have it anymore. And instead of saying that they were jerking me around because the replacement model costs more. Because finding the model I ordered isn't happening, but finding the new model ($50 more) is easy.

Fuckers.

"most open and transparant"

In case you missed it, Chief Executive Obama is pushing for more retroactive law in order to suppress a large amount of torture evidence that's in the process of being ordered released by courts. (It's currently in appeals to the US Supreme Court, which is expected to order the evidence released.) Anticipating this ruling, a bill has been tossed together in Congress for Mr. Obama by supporters to carve an exception into FISA law. The bill is here. Greenwald asks:

Just imagine if any other country did this. Imagine if a foreign government were accused of systematically torturing and otherwise brutally abusing detainees in its custody for years, and there was ample photographic evidence proving the extent and brutality of the abuse. Further imagine that the country's judiciary -- applying decades-old transparency laws -- ruled that the government was legally required to make that evidence public. But in response, that country's President demanded that those transparency laws be retroactively changed for no reason other than to explicitly empower him to keep the photographic evidence suppressed, and a compliant Congress then immediately passed a new law empowering the President to suppress that evidence. What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people?

So much for "the most open and transparent [administration] in history."

In the meantime, in "completely fucking out of touch" news, have this lovely tidbit, re-reported by Reason, where former Chief Executive Bush and President Clinton "admitted [on Monday] they had no idea the U.S. was implementing a new rule Monday that would require Canadians and Americans to have passports to cross the border." Mr. Bush in particular seemed confused, saying, "I thought we were making good progress on using a driver's licence to cross the border. What happened to the E-Z card?" This was at a joint address in Toronto. They were Shocked! Shocked! to hear about this travesty. Mr. Clinton promised to do something about it, which I hope the good people of Toronto knew better than to take seriously.

most notably

Good afternoon. I've no time for anything real today except to follow up on a couple of notes from yesterday.

The US dollar is testing down limits across several currencies, and the DIX has settled a bit above 78.4 after a morning break down past the previous ledge of 79.2. Mish thinks there's a lot of anti-dollar sentiment and speculation, and to tread carefully. Naked Capitalism discusses this as well.

The MBS benchmark (FNMA 30 year) recovered a little today, up 7/32nds, after a morning which appeared to indicate another day of brutality. However, a sudden influx of buyers mid-day (east-coast time, anyway) reversed the market. On a related topic, in email, the Mortgage Bankers Association noted that commercial and multifamily mortgage delinquency rates continued to rise in 1Q2009:

Between the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009, the 30+ day delinquency rate on loans held in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) rose 0.68 percentage points to 1.85 percent. The 60+ day delinquency rate on loans held in life insurance company portfolios rose 0.05 percentage points to 0.12 percent. The 60+ day delinquency rate on multifamily loans held or insured by Fannie Mae rose 0.04 percentage points to 0.34 percent. The 90+ day delinquency rate on multifamily loans held or insured by Freddie Mac rose 0.08 percentage points to 0.09 percent. (Note that in June 2008, Freddie Mac began reporting multifamily delinquencies as those loans 90+ days delinquent. Prior to that time the reported numbers are for loans 60+ days delinquent). The 90+day elinquency rate on loans held by FDIC-insured banks and thrifts rose 0.66 percentage points to 2.28 percent.

That's all for now, everything else today has been about washing machines and other annoyances.