Monthly Archives: January 2011

When if FREE not FREE….

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The question is: when is “FREE” not “FREE”. Maybe your perception of FREE is what matters. I see the word “FREE” and think they are sending it to me for “FREE”, though I would accept a reasonable shipping charge.

I see ads that say they will send me something for “FREE”, all I have to do is buy their product. BUZZ BUZZ.

While I am not picking on Newsmax Magazine I will use the disclaimer from their web site to make a point.

I understand I can only order one hat perhousehold. At the end of my free trial, I’ll be sent a renewal notice. If I like Newsmax magazine I can do nothing and my subscription will automatically renew for an additional 12 issues at the low annual price of $39.95 by charging my credit/debit card or my checking account. There’s no risk — I’ll always receive advance notice of annual renewals, and I can cancel at any time for a full refund of the unused portion of my subscription. I understand that if I cancel the trial subscription before the notice of renewal, I will be charged the full retail price of $22.95 for the hat.

The intention here, of course, is to get you to get a subcription to their magazine.  OK.

It is a trial subscription, I know, and yes the subscription is “FREE”.  All you have to do is wait for the renewal notice, and then let them know you do not want to renew.

If you cancel the trial subscription before you get the renewal notice you have to pay $22.95 for the hat.

If they send you the renewal notice, and you just wanted the hat, can you call them up on the phone to decline the renewal?  What if you have to send it in and they do not get it in time, or if the post office loses it?

I have not dealt with newsmax in the past, and am not interested in the hat but, is it a “FREE” hat?  Or is it an “at not additional charge”  hat.

That is my question.

Let’s Get to Work..?

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Generic image of rick scott

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The results, of the election, are in and the new people are starting to “Get to Work”.

4 out of 10 Floridians made the choice to vote, and the results are going to start being felt.. soon.

When someone complains, in the coming months, you should ask them if they voted and then, if they had not voted you should explain to them that since they did not voice their opinion when it was important they do NOT have anything to say NOW. I sometimes hear people complain that the reasons they did not vote were that: one person was going to win anyway, it was not worth my time, or it was too inconvenient.

Looking at some of the recent elections, such as the 2008 votes I would have said that only real left wingers would have voted for Obama, and I would have been wrong. In this last election, here in Florida, I would have said that the obvious choice would have been Alex Sink for Governor, or Meek or Crist for Senator, I was wrong all the way down.

In the past couple of years some of Florida’s counties, and cities, have passed amendments that would make it harder for their local government to authorize increased density in zoning plans. Growth management is an important issue here, as developers want to make their money from building more and more homes, and the people want to have to have odd things like, roads that are not congested, homes that are not crammed onto little lots, or enough schools for the students. Impact fees were set up so that new homes would help to pay for these things. Rick Scott is promising, by appointing developers to office, to curtail growth management, and open Florida to urban sprawl.

Rick Scott plans to roll back all of the advances we have made here, and let the developers have free reign to cram houses everywhere, endanger our drinking supplies, the environment, and our beaches.

Make sure you let him know that you want to keep Florida Beautiful, uncluttered, and unpolluted.

Let us make sure that he understands that the infrastructure, such as roads, schools, water, electric, etc., should be in place before the homes are built.

I have seen the bay front, in Sarasota, change to look more like Miami Beach – Tacky.

Peacfull? I wonder.

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I recently read an article by Tony Blair, the ex-Prime Minister of the UK, where he pointed out that out of 22 conflicts going on in the world , all but one of them involved Muslims.

It is easy to point to this kind of article and say, “no, they are not a peaceful religion”, or look at the Qur’an and see where they are supposed to be tolerant of other religions. Much like the Christian Bible.

What is needed to be done is to look at what they do. Like Forrest Gump said, “stupid is as stupid does”, and the same goes here. It does not matter what you say if, you do not do what you say.

I would love to think that it is just the radicals who a responsible for the violence. The problem is in that statement by Tony Blair…

Do not just look at the middle east, look around the world and see the attacks on other cultures, or even their own, and it is hard to think that they are indeed peaceful.

I remember a time when in the Irish had a war going on between the Catholics and Protestants, they made peace eventually, and I have not heard of a resurgence of hate, but could you use that to say that either the Protestants, or Catholics, were a violent people? Some might.

The real question is.. is that conduct wide spread? Does it only happen in a limited area, such as the middle east, or is it global? It is global… and takes place in Africa, obviously the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and even in the Pacific Rim countries.. Does that make Islam a dangerous religion? Yes!

Are there radicals in Islam? Yes. Are there moderates who prefer peach? Oh, yes.

When 911 happened, how many of the moderates came out of the Mosques and said how horrible it was that 3,000 people were killed. Did any of the go on the airwaves to talk about who evil this act was? Did you see any of them? No, we saw on the news broadcast happy crowds rejoicing at the deaths suffered by the “Great Satan“.

I recently saw a video, I can’t remember his name, about a man who pointed out some of the similarity between Christianity and Islam, and then pointed out that the main difference was that Christian populations were better at assimilating into the host countries.

You can look back at the Crusades, 7 or 8 of them in a 200 year period, or the eradication of other European religions as the church spread across Europe and said tat Christians were evil. What you should keep in mind is that they got over it. Islam started 570-632 A.D, and has yet to learn the tolerance that the Christians display.

Christians have practice for thousands of years so, maybe there is a chance that Islam will mature into the kind of religion they say they are now.

Smile, your on Candid Camera?

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There have been, in the last couple of years, moves to place cameras at stop lights The idea, of course, is to catch people who rum red lights. The theory is very simple, it is the implementation that gets complicated. In Florida the legislature had to pass a law making this legal. With out the law the cameras could not be placed in the actual intersections as they are state right of way.

There was also talk about how the tickets would be issued. Would they be criminal, such as your speeding ticked, or civil. Lets look at a speeding ticket. When the officer, deputy, trooper, issues you a ticket he has just arrested you for a criminal offense, and you are granted a kind of bail when you sign the ticket, which only means that you will show up in court and is NOT a confession. The problem with trying to issue criminal complaints based on photos of the incident is that for an arrest to be made, and these are misdemeanor charges, the officer has to have observed the incident. If you want to test this just try getting a cop to issue a ticket to someone for running a red light, which the officer, deputy, trooper, did not personally see. He won’t do it.

From what I have seen, in the press, most of the people who will be running the cameras will be employed by private companies and not by local government. So what would be the chance that they would pay a state certified law enforcement officer to sit at a camera, snapping pictures, so he can say, “Yes, I personally saw the violation”?
The proving of guilt in a civil court is different than that of a criminal court. In a criminal court they have to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” but, in a civil case they only need a “preponderance of evidence”. Plus, in the civil court there is NO actual arrest. The fine would have to go to the owner of the vehicle, and not necessarily the driver. This would have to do with the fact that no one was there to get ID information from the offender, such as would be accomplished with a real traffic stop, and, probably, the only ID factor would be a picture of the vehicles license plate, which would not prove that Junior was not driving the car that day.

Big Brother is coming, or, depending on who you talk to, is already here. We are getting used to cameras at the bank, watching traffic on the highways, in shopping malls, and many residential areas. The watchword is Safety.

So, when you go out, and about, smile at the camera where Big Brother maybe watching.

Better yet! Think about how long it will take for someone to figure out how to make you safer in the home by installing a camera, just in case you fall down and can’t get up, or maybe the insurance companies might want to be sure you took all safety precautions in your home.

I don’t want to sound paranoid but, ever since 911 I have been hearing about how was are supposed to give up certain amount of privacy to ensure our safety. The question is, how much of your privacy do you wish to part with.

Would we like the feeling that our TV is watching us as we watch it? Would you like to think that, while watching TV one night, you might mention roaches in the kitchen and the next day a health inspector knocks son your door to check the sanitary conditions of you kitchen?

Of course there is also the idea that if you are murdered in your home that the culprits might be caught on film. That part might be nice. They might not get there in time to stop it but the bad guys will be caught, and then they can show your death in court. Justice served.

Think about it…