I always thought that using a debit vs. a credit card was the same thing, other than that it takes the funds directly out of your checking account. I mean, the card looks like a credit card, it’s a MasterCard or Visa, has 16 numbers, etc.

Big difference is:

When you use a credit card to make a purchase, if it turns out that you are unsatisfied, or if something goes wrong that makes you feel you got ripped off or that the vendor did not deliver their end of the transaction as promised, you can contest the charges and your credit card company will investigate the dispute. If they find that your evidence supports your allegation, they will reverse the payment from the vendor and return your money.

Ive done this a couple times- once for example, when I bought a plane ticket to meet some musician friends on tour in Europe. They had a tight tour schedule and I was planning on hooking up with them at one of their stops. Well, the flight was canceled for some reason, and the soonest they could put me on another plane was the next day- at which point my friends would be long gone and my flight to that destination was no longer relevant. The airline refused to refund my ticket. I went through my credit card company and they got me my money back.

With a debit/check card, you can’t do this, because it’s the same thing as writing a check. Once that money exchanges hands, any disputes over your purchase would have to be done through small claims or the better business bureau.

Think about this the next time you pay for something like a car repair or a service, or an expensive piece of mail-order merchandise. If you think there’s even a remote chance you could get screwed, or if the vendor is in Iowa or something and too far away for legal action, always use a credit card vs. a Debit/check card.

from Best of Craigslist

Adbusters in Berlin are hoping people will see the real side of advertising with paste ups of the photoshop interface on ads depicting a flawless Britney Spears, Leona Lewis, and what looks like Christina Aguilera.

Check out the flickr photoset at Flickr – Epoxy_One

The Houston Chronicle has put up a flash animated version of the Space Station with all 28 proposed spacewalks. Check it out:

HoustonChronicle.com

On December 18, 2008, in Zhu Ma Dian City, China, Yu Lan Zhou’s pregnant daughter-in-law, who was only 7 months pregnant, gave birth to a preterm baby boy in a local clinic.

Born way too early, he weighed only 1.4lbs at delivery and could not breathe properly on his own. The newborn boy’s heartbeat was very weak and his arms and legs were the size of an adult’s fingers.

The clinic suggested that the family take the baby to a hospital for immediate medical attention.

Zhou took her grandson to a local military hospital, but they refused to admit the baby when she could not come up with the required advance payment of 10,000 yuan, about $1,500.

At home, with no incubator, no oxygen tubes, and no medication, Zhou holds her grandson against her chest to keep him warm against the cold, which sometimes gets below freezing in her house. To help the boy breath, she gently blows air near his face and struggles to feed him.

Edit: Reports indicate that because of the publicity the story had, many people from all over the world offered to send money to cover the medical costs.

The local hospital also agreed to admit the baby on the evening of the 28th, but the weather was too cold to move the fragile baby.

Unfortunately the boy was not strong enough to make it to the hospital and passed away at 4:00 am on the 29th. Reports indicate the boy passed due to lack of oxygen. from WeirdAsiaNews

With redundancies rising and job vacancies shrinking, unemployment is back in the headlines. But for millions it never went away. As part of a series on Britain’s jobless, one family explains how and why lack of work has touched their lives.

Elizabeth Malcolm, 43, has never had a job. She lives in a two-bedroom council flat in Glasgow with her three children, one grandchild, two cats and a hamster.

Neither of her two working-age children has a job.

The family is what the statistics gatherers call a "workless household" - one of three million in the country. In reality it’s not quite so easy to put every jobless person into a neat little box. This is their story.

Elizabeth, known as "Biff" to family and friends, wishes now that she had got into work or college back in 1980, when she left school at 15.

It was hardly a great time to be a jobseeker, especially living in Easterhouse, a part of Glasgow long synonymous with deprivation and unemployment. But she concedes that she doesn’t really know why she didn’t get a job, and that there was an element of just "not getting round" to it.

She doesn’t think school wanted her to stay on because she "wasn’t too bright" and used to bunk off a lot.

Without any qualifications she assumed she wasn’t able to follow her chosen path and join the Army. She never actually made it to the recruitment office to ask. Via BBCNews.

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., criticized by U.S. lawmakers for its use of corporate jets, asked aviation regulators to block the public’s ability to track a plane it uses.

“We availed ourselves of the option as others do to have the aircraft removed” from a Federal Aviation Administration tracking service, a GM spokesman, Greg Martin, said yesterday in an interview. He declined to discuss why GM made the request.

Flight data show that the leased Gulfstream Aerospace G-IV jet flew Nov. 18 from Detroit to Washington, where Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner Jr. spoke to a Senate committee that day and a House panel the next day on behalf of a $25 billion auto-industry rescue plan. More at Bloomberg.com

Related articles

• Auto CEOs flew private jets to ask for bailout
• GM’s Gas Pains, Loses $3.3B in 1st Quarter

   Impact Your World: The global food market’s shelves are getting bare and hunger activists say it will get worse. As the nation marks World Hunger Relief Week, more people are asking: Why are so many people starving and what, if anything, can be done to eradicate hunger? Learn how you can help.

David Schechter - CNN Senior National Editor.

     The young man, wearing a shirt and a tie, turned up just as the pantry operated by an Iowa food bank was closing for the night.

He knew it was after-hours. That’s why he was there.

He kept his gaze downward as he told the woman from the food bank that he had lost his job, had a wife and kids and was too embarrassed and ashamed to stand in line to receive a bag of groceries that hopefully would feed his family for a week. Continued at CNN…

Related articles

• Food banks struggle with more people, less food
• Long lines, empty shelves are signs of times at food banks
• Food banks face long lines, empty shelves

This is journalism at its best, I feel we should give her a medal and use her as an example to 24 hour news networks.

Is the US already at war with Iran? In "America’s Secret War", Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to the Iraq-Iran border to investigate claims that the United States is supporting militant groups that are attacking Iran. In the rugged Qandil mountains, she meets with up with anti-Iranian guerillas who have been launching deadly raids against the Islamic Republic. A good percentage of the fighters are women, and Mariana accompanies a small group of them through what many believe has become the frontline of the US’s secret war with Iran.

The story continues. Another proxy war led by the American government. This happened so many times before under Reagan’s administration and we had George H.W. Bush and his war in Nicaragua against the Sandanistas. Remember the Contras and Ollie North? Remember the illegal funding of the Contras and the selling of weapons to Iran for money to finance the Contras? But no one remember the thousands that died under this war. Things haven’t changed. Bush Sr. = Bush Jr.? You Betcha, this should have been predictable.

And btw, who can say they knew this much about IRAN, Kurds, PKK, PJAK and Hezbollah before?