Chimpy on mute

I am waiting for the season premiere of Criminal Minds to come on and they said it would be seen in its entirety and it damn well better be or I am going to hunt someone down. Anyway, so Chimpy is on mute and I can't help but think, I know he is probably trying to justify why his cronies who are losing money hand over fist need this 700 billion dollar bailout, that this is the only way to save the economy, but what about the non-corporate world many of us could use a bailout too. Maybe we should just follow the bible like these fundies always want us to do and forgive all individual debt. All debt is supposed to be forgiven every fifty years according to the Torah so why not start this year. All individual debt is forgiven and we go on with our lives. Oh yeah, that is not part of the Bible that the fundies conveniently forget about like the other ideas that are inconvenient for them like the laws of Kashrut, not coveting your neighbors wife and the prohibition against murder (the death penalty or this current war come to mind here). And only the corporate world needs to be bailed out, how could I be so stupid and think that maybe helping individuals get back on their feet may help our economy a helluva lot more than rewarding irresponsible corporations and investors?

Is this supposed to be some way of getting the public to demand a bailout since Congress does not seem to be just laying down and letting BushCo. ram the plan down their throats?

Political Fallacy

I saw the image above at Mock, Paper, Scissors and it got me thinking. My first thoughts were, why does McCain need so many cars and homes for just he and Cindy? Why do they need a pick-up truck? Why does he need three golf carts, one I understand maybe, but three? So I went through the usual liberal thoughts on what a rich asshole McCain is and he is and I will never ever ever vote for him.

But then I started to think about Obama. We get this image that he is a regular guy, that he is not a rich asshole. He only has one home and only one car. Hmmmmmm.... well maybe they only have one car because Michelle only needs one car for her and the two girls, OK. And they only have one home, in Chicago, because, well, Michelle and the girls live there and that is Barak's primary home. But then where does he live when he is supposed to be in D.C. for Congress and how does to he get to work? Ya see, we think of Obama as this regular guy, he does not have a lot of homes and cars like McCain, but he still probably has a condo in D.C. or the surrounding area. Maybe he rents this condo and maybe he owns it, but either way, he has a residence in DC. And where ever he lives, I am relatively certain that he is not taking the bus or Metro to work. So either he has a car in DC, he rents a car or the Congress provides a car for his use, but then who is paying for this car if he doesn't own one and who is paying for his residence in DC if he doesn't own one?

We like to think of our presidential candidates as just like us. We like to think that they have jobs like us and houses like us and cars like us, but this is simply untrue. In order to be involved in politics on the national level, you have to be wealthy. You have to have the money to put into getting your campaign started. You have to have the money to keep yourself going if your campaign struggles and supposedly you should have the money to be able to afford to go to these fundraisers and such. So you have to be wealthy. It bothers me when we try to think of candidates as anything other than wealthy. While we struggle to pay bills and many are struggling with mortgage payments, neither of these candidates has these issues. Maybe Obama grew up in a family that struggled, but he has not had these same issues in many years. So lets face the fact that neither of these men are working class and both are in the upper tax bracket and worry more about their policies and not their financial situations.

What about the vegetarians?

I had a school district wide training today. It was not the greatest training. The keynote speaker was good, but the break-out session was too crowded and really didn't add anything. But my real issue was with lunch. They provided lunch for us, a boxed lunch. Ok, but it was all meat, ham, roast beef or turkey. What about the vegetarians? I am not a strict vegetarian, so all I did was take the meat and the cheese off (cause it was processed American Cheese yuck) and ate the bread and the one tomato and some lettuce sandwich, but still... This is for the whole school district, close to a thousand teachers and you do not think that anyone might not eat meat or you think that since you do not eat meat you should have to buy your own lunch rather unlike anyone who will eat meat and so they provide lunch for only the meat eaters. Hell, even if you are not a vegetarian you might not want processes lunch meat. One of the other teachers is pregnant and women who are pregnant should not eat processed meats, she remembered to bring a PB and J sandwich with her, but still is this fair. What if she forgot her own sandwich or thought there would be a non-meat option? Damn carnivores only thinking of themselves.

What happened to customer service

GG and I have been thinking about getting a family plan for our cell phones. It makes no sense for us to each have our own cell phone plan when, 1. neither of us uses even close to the number of minutes that we each have and 2. we are paying like thirty dollars more a month than it would cost for the two of us to get a family plan. The contract for GG's cell phone plan has expired so there is no problem with her switching to another company. My plan on the other hand is still in effect, but I was thinking that I might be willing to pay the early termination fee if I had to, but that it might be best to stick with the same company I already have. We had been looking around at the different companies and the plans that each has and also trying to figure out which has the best service and would work best for us. We finally decided that it would be one of two companies, the one I was with or a new one. So first, on Saturday we went into the retail store for the one I am with and the sales person was rude and really obnoxious. I asked first, if I up graded to a family plan if that meant I had to have a new contract, he looked at me like I was stupid and said well yes of course. So then I asked since I had to have a new contract could I get a new phone because I am starting to like my phone, it has really bad battery life and I wanted one with a better battery life. He said he had to go look at my account and then he could tell me. He looked up my account and said that I could not get a new phone till January. "This isn't that long of time though." Also, the salesman said even if I got the new contract adding GG to get a family plan, this date would not be affected. So I was going to have to wait a few months for a new phone. GG and I then added that I could get a new phone with another company and pay less per month for a family plan. His retort was that but "we have the only national network and we are the best network." Hmmmmmmm well most of the companies are now national and you can get signal most places. The places where you can't get service is pretty much uniform where it doesn't matter which company you are with, they are just too rural, at least this seems to be my experience. So we left and he did not even really try to keep us. He lost two consumers. As GG and I talked about it, if he had tried to keep us he may have had success. If he had said, hey I know that you are not due for a new phone till January, but since you are upgrading I will work with you and you can get one. Or I can't give you a new phone, but I can give you a credit on your first bill. Or I can get a nicer phone for the other person to encourage you to stay with us. But he didn't do any of this, he seemed to not understand the customer service is about making sure people stay with your company or at least do not think you are horribly obnoxious and an ass. This is not the first time I have had bad in-store service with this company, in fact all but the first time I have gone into the retail stores for this company, I have had to deal with obnoxious, annoying salespersons.

So, GG and I have gone with another company where the person at the retail store was friendly and helpful. He answered all of our questions and when he didn't know the answer to something he went and found the answer. We also mentioned that we were thinking of getting the phones online and he agreed with our logic that since we could get phones free from online that would have costed us some money in the store that this was not a bad idea. He did add that if we got them online, we would have to return them by mail if something went wrong, that we could not take them into the store for service, which is not really a big deal for us, but was really helpful to know. He also was not obnoxious and actually seemed to want our service and did not act like we were doing him a favor by coming into his store. This salesman was there to help us. I should have known that the new compnay would have been had better service based upon this survey from J.D. Power.

The lesson here, customer service is still important and if you cannot be personable than maybe you should work in a dark basement where you don't have to come in contact with others. I know not everyone's experiences are not the same, but I can only go on what I have dealt with and can only hope that the new company will continue to live up to my positive hopes.

NOTE: I am intentionally not naming the companies I dealt with, but just in case you want to know the bad company rhymes with berizon and the good company rhymes with b-mobile.

YouTube Fridays

Theme songs from shows I can remember watching as I was growing up and really liked. Both of these shows are from the same time frame, basically the early '90s. Also, I have been informed that GG did not watch either of them.

Alaska speaks out against Palin

NOTE: I got this in an email from my mom and wanted to share it with everyone. I am sure many if not all of you have seen it already, but in case you haven't here is a message (email??) from a women in Alaska about an anti-Palin rally that was held recently in Anchorage. Also, if you have not seen the email yet and want it either to pass along to others or to see all of the pictures, I just picked some of my favorites, just email me and I can forward it on to you.


[The] Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage. Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It's probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally "a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots", and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I'd been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically, in Anchorage , if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke, we'll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing "socialist baby-killing maggot" haters.

It's a good thing I wasn't tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody's trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn't honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you've been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska , who know her best, have things to say.


A bunch of pictures:

In case you ever wondered...

In case you ever wondered what I looked like, this is whom a parent and her daughter think I look like: