New Hampshire Real Estate & Consumer Resources

As I’ve mentioned before, we have a small retail business where we sell hobby-related products through a website. It’s not a big money-maker, but it does offer some nice additional income.

Having a small business presence on the internet opens you up as a potential victim for various types of scam artists who pretend to want to do business with you. These scams will usually be in the form of e-mail messages that indicate that the sender wants to purchase something from your company.

We’ve never received any telephone calls from scam artists even though our telephone number is available on our web site, but I suppose it is possible that some other small businesses have been contacted over the phone by scammers.

The latest scam e-mail we received recently was from someone claiming that his name was “Paul Stuggart” who claimed that he wanted to place an order on our site. Here is the e-mail that was received:

From: Paul Stuggart [paulstuggart@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 11:05 AM
Subject: Order Enquiry

Hello, I want to place an order in your store,Let me know if you ship to Australia method of payment will be credit card,I will be very glad if you can assist me with the order, I will await your prompt response as soon as you received this mail. I will be happy if you treat this email with good concern Warmest Regards PAUL STUGGART

The first tip off is that this scam artist is using a G-Mail account for his e-mail. G-Mail is a free e-mail service similar to those offered by Yahoo! and Hotmail, and you will not usually see legitimate business people using these types of free services for their business-related e-mail.

Secondly, there is no reason for him to be e-mailing us to tell us he wants to order something from our site. We do indicate on our site that we ship to Australia, and he could have simply placed his order online if he wanted to.

Thirdly, you may notice that the wording of the message is a bit peculiar. Phrases like “I will be very glad if you can assist me” and “I will await your prompt response” are the types of phrases that are often used by these scam artists, particularly the notorious Nigerian “419” scam artists.

The line at the end where he writes “I will be happy if you treat this email with good concern” really seals the deal, and marks the sender as a scam artist with almost absolute certainty. This is very typical of the language these guys use all the time.

I decided to play along and respond to his message, and let him know that we do indeed ship to Australia and asked him how I could help him. This was his response:

From:    paul stuggart [paulstuggart@gmail.com]
Sent:    Saturday, October 18, 2008 2:16 PM
Subject:    Re: Order Enquiry

Hello,

  Thank for your fast response and i want you to know that i came
across your store information via a friend and here is what i will
like to order for,

[Name of product removed]
qty:100

I will like you to get back to me with the total cost and the
shipping cost as the qty is much.and here is address for you to the
shipping cost via ups or fed ex.and please kindly get back to me if
this items is in stock because i do not want any delay on this.

XXX XXXXXXX Street
XXX XXXXXXX
AUSTRALIA
Phone:  XX XXX XXXX

Do this on time so that i can be able to give you my credit card
information and complete my order for me Best Regards Paul Stuggart

Again, this is typical of these scam artists. They will tell you they want to place orders that are much larger than the typical order, and want to discuss shipping options with you.

Also note the urgency he tries to inject into the transaction by saying he does not want any delay on this. The less time potential victims spend thinking about things like this, the more likely they are to become victims.

I have removed the address and telephone information that this scam artist used since it was the address of an actual business in Australia who I was able to track down through the internet and contact via e-mail.

The owner of the legitimate business that is at that address has been having problems with scam artists using their address.

There was some indication that the scammers may make their money on the shipping costs, although I did not get the full details of how they operate.

There are many types of scam artists out there, but there are usually numerous clues in their messages that reveal their true intent. Be alert for these signs and you will likely avoid becoming a victim of these criminals.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

There’s a lot of fear out there, and our friends in the media are feeding on it like a shark during a feeding frenzy.

Yes, the economy is bad, and yes, unfortunately some people are losing their jobs and that really stinks.

But what this is about is perspective. As most people know, Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors (if not the most successful) of all time, and I dare say he knows quite a bit about business and the economy.

The media makes their money off of gloom and doom, and they are probably one of the few industries that’s thriving with all this bad news out there.

I’ll shut up now, and just hope you will watch this interview, and realize that the world as we know it is not about to end.

Watch Warren Buffett, and it just might make you feel a little better about this whole situation.

Law enforcement has managed to round up 11 criminals who were behind the massive computer hacking scheme that resulted in the theft of millions of credit and debit card numbers as well as other personal information from retail giant TJX.

Back when I first learned about the scheme, I posted that TJX needed a good slap in the face. At this point I’d like to amend that statement by saying they should get a good kick in the… Well, use or imagination.

Ever since I heard about it, I have wondered how the crooks managed to pull it off. Having worked in the computer industry for many years, these kinds of things interest me, and now that arrests have been made, I managed to dig up the details that had previously eluded me.

Here’s how this whole thing went down: The hackers made use of a technique called "war driving," something that has been going on for years. In involves driving around with a laptop computer that is configured to detect wireless networks. In this case, the hackers were said to have used a directional antenna which can greatly increase the range from which you can access a wireless network.

Believe it or not, there are plans on the internet that involve the construction of a rudimentary directional antenna for war driving purposes using a Pringles can!

In this particular case, the hackers parked outside a Marshall’s store near St. Paul, Minnesota sometime during July of 2005, and commenced their efforts to penetrate the stores wireless network. With wireless hand-held price checkers in use in the store, and probably other wireless devices as well, there was plenty of data in the air for the hackers to capture on their laptop. This kind of activity could also be referred to as "sniffing" since the hackers are simply gathering the data that is being transmitted between various store devices via the wireless network.

Some of this data that the hackers captures contained usernames and passwords for TJX’s main computer systems in Framingham, Mass. Those were the gems that the hackers were looking for. They had hit the jackpot.

You may be wondering why it was so easy for the hackers to penetrate the store’s wireless network and begin sniffing all the traffic. It was so easy because the store was using an outdated version of the encryption scheme that was used to protect the data. They were using an encryption scheme known as WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy, which had been "cracked" as early as 2001, meaning that weaknesses in the encryption scheme were discovered, and resulted in the creation of readily available programs that allowed hackers to compromise a WEP-encrypted wireless network in minutes. For the hackers, it was likely equivalent to child’s play.

TJX, a $17 billion dollar retail empire, failed to upgrade their wireless network to a new scheme called WPA, which corrected the problems with the WEP scheme. An auditor later discovered that TJX had also failed to install network firewalls and data encryption protection on many of its computers connected to the wireless network, and didn’t properly install another layer of security software it had obtained. Maybe they just bought the extra software because it came in a pretty box!

When queried about these failures the company declined to comment on its security measures. Perhaps the $17 billion dollar company could not afford to hire qualified personnel to implement the protective measures. As they used to say on Saturday Night Live, "Yeah, that’s the ticket."

Once the hackers has access to the companies main computer systems in Framingham, they boldly created their own user accounts to access the systems, and even went as far as using the company’s network to exchange encrypted messages with one another to avoid duplicating their efforts and copy files that has already been copied.

The hackers collected TJX retail customer information from the TJX systems and copied it to other systems they had access to in the U.S. and Eastern Europe. They sold some of the data to other criminal elements, and used some it themselves.

Some of the data even included Social Security numbers, drivers licence numbers and military ID numbers, exposing over 450,000 customers to the threat of identity theft. Naturally, the company apologized for the incident and has improved their security, but I guess that’s a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Once that data is out there, it’s out there and who knows how many criminals have access to it.

The whole nasty scheme started coming to light during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when some customers of Fidelity Homestead, a Louisiana savings bank, began to notice strange transactions on their credit card statements. Hey, just what you need after enduring the worst hurricane in recent history! Some low-life using your credit card info to go on a spending spree.

Meanwhile, the hackers were still having their way with the TJX systems and managed to go unnoticed by the geniuses in the TJX IT department for 18 months. That’s got to be some strict set of security guidelines they had in place in their data center, wouldn’t you say? But, hell, who needs to protect things like customer Social Security numbers and other personal information as well as debit and credit card numbers? Just let the usernames and passwords for those systems fly around the airwaves inside stores on a wireless network that was well known for it’s easy accessibility. Brilliant!

Apparently, various criminals around the world had a field day with the data and used it to make purchases and do whatever else they could with it to profit. Criminals are often able to obtain equipment that can be used to create credit cards that are copies of the originals once they have collected the required info they need to print on the cards and encode onto the card’s magnetic strip.

It was during the fall of 2006 when a group of morons on Florida decided to go on a spending spree that set about the events that started to put pieces of the puzzle together. A Wal-Mart clerk became suspicious of people buying large quantities of gift cards and alerted police.

With the help of store surveillance tapes, the police managed to track down and arrest the idiots, who were said to have "covered a lot of territory in a relatively short period of time," according to a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That’s what happens when stupid criminals allow themselves to get too greedy.

As the crooks in Florida were enjoying an early Christmas at someone else’s expense, an auditor at TJX warned the company regarding its poor security, and that the company wasn’t complying with many of the requirements imposed by Visa and MasterCard, according to someone who was familiar with the auditor’s report. The report noted the outdated WEP wireless encryption, as well as missing software patches and network firewall protection.

It took until December of 2006 before TJX finally began to realize what had been going on right under their noses for months. They hired computer forensics experts and notified the Secret Service. I can’t help but think that TJX could have spared itself a lot of grief, and more importantly, risk to their customer’s financial well being if they had hired some in-house experts to keep an eye on things, or at least some system administrators who were better trained in matters related to security.

As someone who worked as a system administrator for many years myself, it’s hard to imagine how newly-created, unauthorized access accounts were created on a system without being noticed for 18 months!

There were attempts to catch the hackers in the act but they managed to elude their pursuers by using publicly-available internet connections like those found in coffee houses and using internet addresses belonging to private individuals who had no idea what was going on.

The good news is that this whole fiasco could end up costing TJX $1 billion or more. A punishment that is richly-deserved in this consumer’s opinion.

Personally, I never plan to step foot in a TJX-owned retail establishment again. What can you find in any of their stores that you cannot find online anyway? I just love shopping online since I don’t care much for driving anyway, and I don’t care much for crowds or waiting in check-out lines.

The other good news is that the main figures responsible for this crime have been indicted by federal prosecutors and will probably face a nice hefty stretch of time in a federal prison if convicted. I am a bit concerned that the 11 crooks are spread among five different counties, so I suppose one can expect delays and complications as a result of extradition treaties and other bureaucratic red tape.

I hope this entire episode serves as a warning to big companies that deal with personal data belonging to customers, as well as the hackers who think they are clever enough to out-smart the authorities. What criminals like this don’t seem to realize is that no matter how clever they are (and I will admit they were likely pretty smart when it comes to hacking systems), there are people just as clever on the other side of the law who will be looking for them.

I wonder who had the big idea to put a little sticker on each and every vegetable or piece of fruit in the supermarket. Sure, I am exaggerating a little, since there are probably still some produce items that are not individually labeled, but probably not many!

I see this kinds of stickers regularly on things like peaches, pears, apples, plums, oranges and grapefruit to name a few.

Now it wouldn’t be so bad if these stickers were easier to remove, but apparently the product growers or vendors, or whoever the heck affixes these stickers to the produce hired someone from NASA to come up with an extra sticky sticker that is very hard to remove from some items.

For example, with peaches and plums, I usually end up tearing off the skin along with the sticker and then I end up with that stupid sticker stuck to my finger or thumb.

It hardly seems worth the walk to the trash container for such a small item so I usually look for a piece of junk mail or something on the counter to stick it onto. Even if I did take the time to walk to the trash, there’s the problem of trying to get that stupid sticker unstuck from me and into the trash!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not all that crazy about the idea of sticking my hand into the trash container to locate some item to transfer that sticker to when I’m about to eat a piece of fruit with my hands.

You can forget trying to shake that sucker off your hand and into the trash. By the time that happens, McCain or Obama will be in the White House!

I do appreciate the information on the stickers. I like to know where my food comes from, and they also imprint little code numbers on them sometimes that you can look up on the internet to get more information. That’s kind of cool.

Perhaps they could just put this information like country of origin and other useful tidbits on the signs in the store where the fruit is displayed. I think that would do the trick.

I have not taken the time to research this, but I’m beginning to wonder now whether these stickers were mandated by some consumer law or something. It sounds like something the government might do.

I just wish they would come up with a less sticky sticker. Maybe they could even come up with a way to tattoo the information on the produce. After all, it seems to be the "in" thing these days, but I would have to draw the line at body piercing where produce is concerned, since that would likely cause it to spoil a lot faster.

News has been coming out on some of the big media sites (see CNN) about a serious flaw that allows hackers to control how traffic is routed on the internet.

I’m not sure what took the media so long to catch this story, but this is something that has been known for a while, and I recall reading about it in a trade magazine some months ago.

The first thing the average computer user needs to realize is that there is no action needed on their part. The potential problem only targets DNS servers, which are the computers that route traffic on the internet.

DNS servers are usually owned and operated by big internet service providers like Comcast or Verizon. These DNS systems help internet users reach various destinations on the internet by allowing them to use simple names like www.homesfornh.com instead of the actual internet address which might look something like: 192.168.0.1 or 74.100.33.14.

Imagine how difficult it would be to use the internet if you had to type those kinds of numbers in for each website you wanted to reach! That is where the DNS servers come to the rescue.

Every computer that is connected to the internet has to know the address of the DNS server it will use to translate names like www.homesfornh.com into the actual internet address which is needed to reach that destination. Most of this stuff all happens behind the scenes and most users are not aware that their computer is even using the services of a DNS server, since it happens automatically for the most part, when the user brings their computer online.

What some clever hacker has figured out is a way to access the cache inside a DNS server and modify it to his liking. Think of "cache" as a kind of temporary storage area that a computer keeps in its memory to allow fast access to data that resides there. Retrieving information from a hard disk is slower than from memory, so cache provides an efficient way to access information that tends to be accessed a lot. Instead of pulling the data from the hard disk every time, the data can be snatched quickly from the cache as needed.

In this case, the data in the cache on the DNS servers contains information that is needed to translate the simple names I mentioned earlier into the actual internet address, which was that sting of numbers and dots that’s hard to remember. Since the typical DNS server can have hundreds or thousands of other computers asking it to translate names into numbers on a non-stop basis, the performance of the DNS server benefits greatly by using cache.

Lord knows how hackers figure this stuff out, but there certainly seems to be too many people out there with too much time on their hands which is obviously accompanied by a lack of morals.

Anyway, what the hackers manage to do is exploit some kind of program flaw on a DNS system which allows them to access the cache and modify it. This is known as "DNS cache poisoning."

Let’s say for example, that your bank is called "Big Fat Bank" and you can access your bank account online by visiting www.bigfatbank.com. Whenever you want to visit www.bigfatbank.com, an accommodating DNS server translates that name, www.bigfatbank.com , into the internet address that is needed to route your request to your bank’s website. Let’s say that your bank’s actual internet address is 192.168.37.1 in this case.

Well, when a hacker decides to "poison" the DNS cache on the DNS server that your computer uses to route you to the website you want to visit, he can modify the cache so that www.bigfatbank.com directs you not to 192.168.37.1 where your bank website actually resides, but to another address where he has set up a website of his own.

More-than-likely, the website that the hacker has created will look exactly like your bank’s website, and when customers try to log in to the fake bank site, guess what happens? The hacker records the customer’s account number and password and can then visit the bank’s real website and access the customer’s account.

The customer who attempts to log into the fake bank site that the poisoned DNS cache has directed him to will probably just see a message that says the site is temporarily down for maintenance or something when he tries to log in, and will probably just wait until some later point in time before he tries accessing his account online again.

Meanwhile, the hacker may be accessing the customer’s account and transferring money to one of his own accounts.

All of the major internet providers have been aware of this problem for a while and have probably applied the required fix to their DNS servers, so there is probably not too much to worry about at this point. In fact, I’d be shocked if a single major internet service provider has not implemented the required fix on all of their DNS servers.

However, always be suspicious of anything that seems unusual with any of your online bank accounts, and don’t hesitate to contact your bank or other financial institution if you think someone has gained access to your account or has discovered  your account number and password.

You never know when the next flaw will be discovered that will open a new door for the hackers to exploit, so it pays to be alert and on the lookout for anything that does not seem quite right.

It’s no secret that I pretty much hate telephone calls from anyone but family and friends. There are of course exceptions, doctor’s offices confirming appointments, employers, someone advising you that you won the lottery — that kind of thing.

Although I dislike receiving calls from those political pollsters, I don’t dislike them as much as I do the telemarketers.

Sometimes, I’ll even have a little fun with these pollsters, but will usually refuse to donate my valuable time to their cause, which is probably profit-driven in one form or another.

Last evening the phone rang and the Caller ID displayed the name of an outfit called "Research Center," with a telephone number of 231-224-2031. This call was coming in on our business line, so, figuring it could be a potential customer, I picked up.

The young lady in the other end babbled something about a political poll and if I would like to participate. I was in a pretty good mood, so I figured I would play along for a change and see what kind if info they were looking for.

The first question was something like this:

In the upcoming Presidential election how would you rate the chances that you will go out and vote?

A. Very Unlikely
B. Somewhat Unlikely
C. Somewhat Likely
D. Likely
E. Very Likely

Well, taking into considering my views concerning the state of this nation and in particular, politicians in general, I told her my answer was "A. Very Unlikely."

At that point, she thanked me and said goodbye.

So, that may be a useful tip if you get one of these calls. If you want to end it quickly and politely, just pick that "A" answer and you’ll be all done. I suppose they simply are not interested in opinions from people who have no plans to vote.

They say flying is no fun anymore. You have to pay extra for the food now and even for your luggage on some airlines. I am not sure if Delta Airlines is one of them, but one thing I do know is that their idea of customer service sure has taken a dive.

I talked to my brother today on the telephone and he shared with me the story of his recent drive from his home in Massachusetts down to JFK airport in New York City to rescue a couple of stranded passengers.

His sister-in-law, a military spouse, by the way, was flying from Dallas, Texas to New York City, where a connecting flight was scheduled to take her to Boston. Oh, I almost forgot: She was traveling with her 9-month-old baby. Just her and her baby, on the way to Massachusetts to visit family.

When she arrived a JFK in New York City, she was greeted with information that a traveler in her position certainly does not want to hear: Her connecting flight was canceled.

No explanation was offered for the cancellation. She was offered what amounted to a stand-by ticket to Boston that "might" get her in a flight to Boston the following morning, but that was it.

No offer of a room or a meal or anything. I guess she was expected to spend the night in an airport terminal with her baby and if she was lucky, she might be able to catch a flight to her destination in the morning.

When my brother got word of this last evening, he volunteered to drive down to JFK and pick her up. He’s the kind of guy that tends to be quite the night owl, and staying up most or all of the night is not at all unusual for him.

He left for JFK around 11:00 PM and arrived back home around 7:00 AM. Fortunately, the trip was a safe and uneventful one.

I realize the airlines are struggling these days due to the high cost of fuel, kind of like the rest of us, I guess. Still, if that is Delta’s idea of customer service, perhaps they ought to just close up shop and sell off their fleet. There really is no excuse for treating a paying customer like that.

I cannot remember when the trend started, but just about every television channel on the air these days has to have their logo on the screen during every program. I believe these are generally referred to has "bugs" and although a small semi-transparent bug in the lower-right corner of the screen does not bother me all that much, this new stuff they are starting to do is really annoying.

There may be legitimate reasons for the bugs with the station’s or network’s bug on the screen during a program to assist them in combating piracy. I can also understand this kind of stuff on news channels like Fox News, CNN or MSNBC since they like to put crawlers at the bottom of the screen with current news items or stock quotes or whatever, and quite frankly, I don’t care if the corner of Shepard Smith’s desk is obscured by a rotating graphic telling what station I am watching and what time it is.

What I am beginning to notice now is taking place on networks that are not focused on news, but are supposed to be entertainment-oriented. What I am seeing are various graphics popping up on the screen advertising other programs that are carried on that particular network. To make matters worse, many of these graphics are animated and appear at the bottom of the screen while taking up a significant portion of it, and blocking out part of the program I are trying to watch.

So far, the animated graphics I have seen run for only a few seconds — but even that is an annoying distraction.

The latest invasion of television screen space that I have seen is a permanent bug that is advertising another program that is scheduled to air on that network.

For example, last evening I was watching a program called The First 48 on the A&E channel. In case you are not familiar with it, it’s a show about homicide detectives and how they solve murder cases, and it is one of my favorite programs.

Last night’s broadcast of The First 48, featured and annoying semi-transparent bug on the upper-left corner of the screen that advertised the program that was going to air next. In the case, it was some new program called The Cleaner or something like that.

What made this bug so annoying was that it remained there throughout the entire program. Not only that, but the commercial breaks also featured advertisements for this new program! Even though I was watching The First 48 on my DVR about an hour after it aired and was using my "commercial skip" button to zap through commercial breaks quickly, I could still see that the new program was being advertising during the breaks, since the commercial skip button advances the program about 30 seconds at a time and allows you to catch a glimpse of the commercials that are airing between button presses.

I suspect that DVR’s and Tivo’s are part of the reason the networks are starting to make use of these permanent bugs that promote their other programming. They know many people are zapping commercials and perhaps this is their way of making sure we are aware of their new programs, but leaving a promotional bug like that on the screen throughout the entire program is a bit overdone if you ask me. Couldn’t they just show it on the screen periodically for 30 seconds or so a few times during the program?

Not only would doing that make these bugs less annoying, I think it also may yield a better result for the network. Having it pop up here and there will catch the attention of viewer, where as leaving it on the screen 100% of the time is simply going to condition viewers to its presence and they will soon be oblivious to it.

That’s the way it has become with those network logo bugs that are usually displayed in the lower-right corner of the screen. I hardly even notice that they are there any longer.

I can tolerate the network logo bugs at this point, but I sure do wish the networks would put an end to the obnoxious animated graphics that interrupt my viewing and the new permanent bugs being used to advertising other programming.

I do not watch all that much TV. Perhaps just the news and an hour or two in the evening, and sometimes not at all, so I imagine there is a lot more of this stuff going on that I am seeing. Give us a break TV networks and just let us watch our favorite shows in peace, will you?

This guy knows what I’m talking about:

With all the foreclosures and credit card defaults these days, it seems the credit card companies are having a harder time signing up new customers. This can work to your advantage, and in some cases, you don’t even have to sign up for a new card.

I recently used my Discover Card to make a small purchase online for my son. I don’t usually use that card much, but since my son is too young to have his own card, I will usually order for him and he simply gives me the money for whatever it was he wanted to order that week. He recently got his first job and has been on a bit of a spending spree lately.

When I received my statement in the mail from Discover, there was an intriguing offer included with the statement. They were offering me 0% interest until July of next year if I transferred a balance from one of my other cards to Discover.

I decided to call Discover to verify this and the customer service representative confirmed it. This meant that every penny that I paid on the balance of my Discover Card after the balance transfer would be applied to my balance. One heck of a better deal I currently have with Chase.

Due to the fact that Chase ticked me off recently, I was kind of looking for a way to dump them anyway and when I decided to take a closer look at my Chase statement, transferring to Discover was a no-brainer.

I’ve got a fairly substantial balance on the Chase card and finance charges were eating up half the payments I was making every month. For example, let’s say my minimum monthly payment was $100. That means they were taking $50 and applying it to the balance of what I owe them and then pocketing the other $50 for themselves. Clearly not a good deal for the consumer in any way, shape or form.

That is the reason that it often seems to take forever to pay down a credit card balance.

Transferring my balance to my Discover Card was quite easy. I signed up for an account on their website and followed a few simple steps to initiate the transfer and I was done.

Bye, bye, Chase, you’ve made your last dollar off of me for a while.

Some readers may know that I am a former resident of the Bay State, commonly known as The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Sometimes I consider myself more of a refugee than just someone who decided to move away after living there all my life.

Living in New Hampshire these days, I still watch a lot of TV out of Boston and while I was watching the Fox 25 Morning News this morning I was surprised to hear that Massachusetts cannot afford to allow for a sales tax holiday weekend this year.

This is something that they have been doing for a little while down in Mass. The great powers that be within the Massachusetts State House decide to give the people one weekend a year when they do not have to pay the state’s sales tax on items purchased for less than a certain amount of money. Don’t want to miss out on tax income from the sales of those Rolls Royces and Yachts, don’t you know!

Needless to say, Massachusetts retailers and consumers just love these tax-free holiday weekends, and are pushing for one this year. New Hampshire retailers probably aren’t as enthusiastic about them since the folks that come up to make major purchases without a sales tax tacked on probably just make their major purchases in their home state that weekend.

Anyway, what really struck me about this story was the reaction of the Massachusetts House Speaker, Sal DiMasi, when faced with pressure from retailers to allow for another tax-free holiday weekend this year. The legislative session is nearing its end, so Massachusetts retailers are getting a little worried that they won’t get their tax-free weekend this time.

Speaker DiMasi’s response? The tax holiday this year is "very unlikely" because the state can’t afford to give up millions of dollars in tax revenue during these difficult economic times.

The state can’t afford it? A state that has to be one of the most wasteful and mismanaged in the whole country, and they can’t afford it? How about cutting back on some wasteful and useless project somewhere? I guarantee you won’t have to look too far in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to find one.

And what about Joe Consumer? Wouldn’t it be nice to give him a little break with a tax holiday this summer? Sure, all the folks that live close enough to the state line can just come up here to New Hampshire and enjoy tax-free shopping, but what about the folks down towards the southern part of the state and on Cape Cod? Don’t they deserve a break in these difficult times?

Maybe Speaker DiMasi should spend less time using taxpayer money on mis-managed, over-budget projects like the "Big Dig," with it’s leaky tunnels and optional collapsing roof, and give the consumer a break with a single sales tax-free holiday. That sure doesn’t seem like too much to ask for.

By the way, there’s a fairly fresh story in the Boston Globe about the "Big Dig." Check it out for a good example of how a big public project is administered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.