Random Thoughts

Quote of the day: A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson

Found this web site linked from a printing company website: The History of Taxation.


Now that the Presidential candidates are declaring years ahead of the election, the cartoon above becomes even more true. My questions are:

• If being a United States Senator is so easy that you can do it in your spare time while doing years of campaigning and fund-raising, what are the rest of the Senators doing with all that free time (idle minds are the playgound of the devil...)? ...and why are we paying them so much?
  
• Even if they are only campaigning when the Senate is not in session, how are they representing their states? How are they studying up on key issues?
  
• If being a US Senator is a full time job, how can those running effectively do the jobs that we're paying them so highly to do?

I like that commercial that says "What if firefighters ran the country..." ... if only.

Maybe I missed something, suddenly I'm seeing Ken Griffey, Jr. listed as "Griffey Jr." in the box scores on ESPN. Has Senior come back to play? That's the only reason I can think that they would need to distinguish him that way. Similarly, I noticed Patrick Ewing, Jr's jersey actually says "Ewing, Jr." on it. Now I know that both Mr. Ewings went to the same school, Georgetown, but they are not playing together so I fail to see the need.

Which leads me to another sports peeve. Why does any team feel the need to put first initials on the jerseys of players who share the same last name? There is a GIGANTIC number on the front and back of the player's shirt that distinguishes the two. Are fans so lazy that they can't figure out that #85 is Chad Johnson and #32 is Rudi Johnson? It gets even worse when teams then start to spell out the first name and or middle name in order to clearly distinguish which player is which. Perhaps we should do away with numbers all together. I kind of like the attitude of the teams that refuse to put names on home jerseys. Fans know which player is which.

'nuff said.

The Constitution, Rights, and Privileges

Here is an excellent teaching of the Constitution, Rights, and Privileges.
This first video of seven is about 50 minutes long. Please watch the first
one to determine if you want to watch the rest. The others are available via
that same webpage. This instructor is by far above many that I have had. See
link below.

http://tinyurl.com/2w9key

What's God's Name?

In another stunning attempt at appeasement in the Netherlands, a Roman Catholic bishop has suggested that everyone call God "Allah." What is he thinking? Was he thinking?

First of all, two of the three major religions refer to God as "God." So, by a majority vote, we win.

Second, we were here first.

Third, Americans are notoriously lazy. "God" has only one syllable while "Allah" has two - double the work - don't see that happening.

Fourth, We'd have to change all our money - thought the ACLU might like that since they've been trying to get "God" off our money for quite a while.

Fifth, I'm sure Osama is over there clapping his hands and pointing at the computer screen saying, "Oh yeah! That's what I'm talking about. Man, they just give us that one and we'll call off this whole terrorism thing."

I guess the only good thing I can see out of this whole idea is that maybe PG-13 movies would stop using G-D as a substitue for the F-bomb. We know they wouldn't substitute an "A-D," now would they?

Roman Catholic Bishop Wants Everyone to Call God 'Allah'

AT&T Family Share(?) Plan

Why would a phone company (AT&T) have a "Family Talk" plan where different people with different phone numbers can share the same account but then limit said people to having only one name assigned to all those numbers? This makes absolutely no sense to me. Isn't it obvious that if I subscribe to the "Family Share" plan I'm going to have more than one person using the "shared" plan? Both the words "Family" and "Share" lend themselves to the concept of more than one person and were probably carefully chosen by Cingular marketing personnel. (Aside - Ever notice that people who work for a major corporation are never "people" but always "personnel" - perhaps that's part of the problem.)

I know they know who I am. Every month when I get the bill it is meticulously broken out between Mrs. Polarshark and the Polarshark himself.

History: Mrs. and I signed up for the (then) Cingular Family Share plan about two years ago. Because I moved over from Sprint, her name became the primary name on our "Family Share" plan account. Everything was fine for the first six months but then someone informed me that suddenly my name on the Caller ID had switched to "Mrs. Polarshark." (*A) Confused, I called the always(rarely) helpful Cingular customer support line and was summarily informed that only the account holder's name could show up on the Caller ID. I patiently (more or less) explained that my Caller ID had been fine until recently and could I kindly speak to a supervisor. After a half-hour or so on the phone I was transferred somewhere else and magically, the gods of cell service were somehow appeased and my nomenclature was miraculously restored... for a time.

Sometime earlier this year when Cingular became "Cingular is the new AT&T," I lost it again - my name that is. Suddenly I was hearing (more than usual) snickers as people answered my phone calls. (Go to *A above and substitute "Cingular is the new AT&T" for Cingular.)

This time, after getting the run-around, I was informed that they can fix my name but that any changes to our account will, without notice, transform me back into my wife, for Caller ID purposes. Fine... whatever... just fix my name. So now, having made exactly no changes to my account, I have once again become my wife on my phone and it just seems ridiculous. Who, in their limited wisdom, figured that they would give multiple numbers to multiple people but that all of these people would wish to share a single name? And the sadder thing is that there is no way to get this information to "Cingular is the new AT&T" because their company is obviously too big to care that I don't want to be known as Mrs. Polarshark.

I am just about to the point where I'm going to make one more name change on my cell phone service. But this time, I'll probably change the name on the faceplate of the phone along with the name on the Caller ID.