Utilizing a AMD Geode SC1200 CPU running at 266MHz. This CPU is capable of TV out, video in and has Macrovision copy protection built in. There is 128MB of built in RAM and 128MB of flash memory, 1 x USB 1.1, 1 x CF Type I / Type II slot.
I love it, except the macrovision copy protection. Who would want to copy a DVD using something with a 266mhz cpu? even if they get some USB DVD drive, where would it get copied? Some 512 meg flash card?
I think this would be a fine replacement for a laptop for those who want to check email or surf the web where there is a wireless service. I would also think at 640*480, it would make for a so-so word processor, not bad for taking to the library. And the fact that its less than one pound would be a huge selling point for me.
Come to think of it, how is this different than a PDA?
It became really annoying. Finally, itcame down to this:
I have a habit of answering the phone in a jovial manner, i.e., with phrases like, "Mort's morgue, you stab 'em, we slab 'em...." Generally speaking, I only get calls from close family, so everyone's in on the joke.
But one time, I decided to answer "Dominoes Pizza, how may I help you..."
And the reply was not whom I expected, but the voice of our least-favorite sheriff impersonator. Yes, it was the collection agency. But to my surprise, he played along:
"Dominoes pizza, eh... I'd like a large pepperoni pizza.."
Well, I continued to take his order, address, phone number and all. I thanked him and then hung up.
Turns out, he was across the state in a major city. Still not a problem, though. I looked up the phone number for the local Dominoes, and relayed his order.
Forty five minutes later, I got a call, "Very funny, wise guy..."
To which I replied, "Dominoes pizza, may I take your order?"
That was the last time he called.
ROFL! That is genius. It is one thing to anwser the phone as dominoes pizza, another thing to call a dominoes and place an order for him. LOL. I dunno what you do for a living, but whatever it is you ain't being paid enough.:)
Uh, no. The people running up debts they can't afford to pay are to blame. It is quite possible the parents "should" have done a better job of teaching their kids how to handle money, but in the end you're responsible for your own actions.
I see your point of view. But can we also add that since there is a problem, that perhaps we should search for a solution rather than assigning blame? I think the people in debt are suffering as it is, trying to pay off their debts, bills, rent, food, and whatever else they need. It would suck to have a job and pay as much as you can, but still owe more than you can pay, and have people label you a crook (I know you did not use that term, but that is what it must feel like). It is very stressful to be unable to pay what is owed. These are good people who have fallen on hard times. They won't have the luxery of buying new cars with low or no interest rates. They won't be able to buy a house. It is not like they snuck one past the system. They are hurt, and I am sure that most of them want to do the right thing and get out of debt.
I have had dealings with my phone company too. It was a wireless service, where they charged more than what I used. I called them, and would always resolve the issue with the costumer service representative and say the problem was fixed. But the bills stayed the same. I finally came to the conclusion they would say anything on the phone, but would not do anything. I did not get anything trully resolved until i sent them some letters, demanding clarification of the bill and contesting the charges. It took a long time to clear things up, and for a two week period they disconnected my phone. I wanted to cancel my contract, but they had that stupid $300 dollar early termination fee, so I did not. But as soon as my service was up, I switched. And whenever any friends ask about what cell phones i used/liked, I always make it a point to tell them Sprint sucks and PCS stands for poor-crappy-service. Not to mention my new wireless service gets less static, and works in more places than my old one.
I have to ask why she bought a $8000 car on credit instead of a $500 car with cash. An $8000 car is a luxury (especially on credit - I make it a point NOT to borrow money to buy a car because the depreciation + interest rate almost always makes it a lousy deal).
First, she is a woman. I think guys are narurally more inclined to think "I can fix a beater", just like a guy could fix a flat on the road, where more women would call for a tow or service. Women are less likely to want to stick their head under the hood and look around. So for her, she wanted something reliable. She knows nothing about cars, and would rather pay for something which runs, than worry about getting ripped off at a car garadge. And I am not saying that to be sexist. I know a few guys who change their own oil, but I don't know one woman who does.
Second, I wonder where you get your cars. When she looked, I think the cheapest car on any lot was $1500 or $2000. There were no running $500 cars. And even those $2000 cars had over 100,000 miles on them.
But I agree with your point. If a person knows something about cars, it is much smarter to buy a used peice of crap car and dump it when it dies a year later than to borrow money to buy something newer. When I was in high school (many, many years ago) I worked a summer and from that money purchased a beater. It lasted me over 2 years and I was happy with the use i got out of it.
Why would anybody spend $8k on a crappy used car, especially when they can't get a good auto loan? You can get a new car for another $4k, or a decent used car for peanuts if you take the time to look.
If you only have $1000 or $1500 saved up, that is not enough to buy a good running used car for cash (unless you know a mechanic who would be willing to spend a week searching car lots looking for a super deal). So you need a car dealership who will extend credit on a used car that is a good runner (something a year or two old). If your credit is not perfect, then the dealerships have high interest rates, and can charge you anything for the car because they know other dealerships might not offer any credit. So the person either has to pay the high interest and whatever price the dealership sets, or the person can spend another month looking for a dealership where they will get the same bad deal. Meanwhile, the person still needs to get to work.
Plus, that woman I knew thought that by buying the car, even at a high interest rate and overpaying, that she could fix her credit. She still drives the car, and makes all her payments on time, but is scared to death of owing thousands of dollars more than what the car is worth. For example, if the car gets in a wreak, and the insurance company pays the blue book value for the auto, she would still owe thousands more than that. Driving to her is stressfull.
Crazy as it may sound I went to college and I saw those tables set up all over campus, I got those envelopes in the mailbox in my dorm and off-campus, and I even passed every single one of those T-shirts up. Can you believe that? Self-restraint!
You might have passed them up, but thousands figure, "i'll get the card for the free shirt or cd, then i'll throw away the card". Then they get the card, and figure $15 a month minimum payment is not that bad, why not upgrade my computer? Multiply that scenereo with 4 or 5 cards, and it can be a large amount of debt for a student.
I am giving you credit. You resisted the free give aways, some don't. Many don't even think about it, they just see "free stuff" and figure why not get it. There should be better education, but most of what people know about credit they learn from their family, if their family talks about it. When I was in high school, we had personal economics, but we never really learned what debt can be like. The teacher did not call us at dinner time to cuss us out.
I also believe the credit card companies are trying to get students hooked into debt early. Why not just offer a service, and not have all the free give aways? Is it because if there were no free stuff, students might think "do i really need a credit card" and would think about it more rationally.
Do you think it is reasonable to go for weeks/months/years without paying off what you owe?
Sometimes it is not about what you owe, but what you can pay. Do you seriously think someone will pay a credit card company when they can't feed themselves or pay rent? Those who get in deep trouble with debt normally lost a job or had something happen which changed how much they make or have in the bank. They are not people who make the same amount of money and have a nice fat bank account who say "for the next 6 months, i am not paying my bills just to tick off the credit companies". They really don't have the money. And if, for example there is some medical debt of $20,000 (which is what a kidney stone surgery costs), sometimes the interest on that debt can be more than the person can pay. Under those circumstances the person will be stuck with the same debt regardless of what they do.
The whole point of credit is a contract. As with most contracts, there are courts to resolve them when they go bad, and one side does not satisfy what is expected of them. But how many times have you seen one side of a party harrass the other when a contract goes bad? Can I call my local cable company president at home every time cable goes out or I have a bad picture? Can I call the Garbage Collection president at home because they did not fully empty my garbage, and demand he comes and picks it up that night? Or would a resonable person send a letter, and if the problem was not resolved and it was worth it to them to file a lawsuit, to go to court? What is resonable here?
Perhaps the people should pay their fucking bills on time and not just ignore them for weeks/months/years?
You must be lucky to never have had a major sickness in the family. Something like that can drain all bank account funds.
And while I am not defending those who owe money, do you have any idea how many college kids get 4 or 5 credit cards, thrown their way. Heck, they hand out t-shirts and phones and cd's for students who sign up. Students should be a little smarter, but it can be hard to resist the free give away.
Even if the debt is valid, do you think it resonable for collection agencies to call every day. It stinks of harrasment. Perhaps the credit card companies should be a little more picky with who they grant credit to. But for them, a $500 credit line which is not paid, and has interest of 19% or more, and a $30 a month over the limit fee, and another $39 a month late fee, can easily become over $2000 before the credit card sells the debt to some collection agency for a profit. Then the collection agency adds on a collection fee. You could easily see that small debt go up ten fold. They make money getting people into debt.
And I know this person who needed a car for work. Their credit was so-so, not perfect but everything was paid. The dealership sold a low end used chevy for $8000 even though the blue book value was $7000. It was the only dealership willing to finance a car for her, and at a high interest rate for 4 years. She did the math and found out at the end of 5 years she would have paid over $14,000 for that car. And 2 1/2 years into paying the debt, the car's blue book is now worth $3000 but she owes $7000 left. If that car breaks and she can't get to work, how can she pay that debt. She will not have a car but will have a monthly payment due. That is how people get in trouble.
Debt collection agencies already mask their online and phone identities pretty well. Using common telephone setups (before the big Asterik "save the children" bullshit) they just appeared as whatever they wanted. In fact their web-presence is generally unknown and they even mask their hostnames to the rest of the world with benign addresses like mta-mailserver.alliedfinancial.com (this is a recreation of an actual NAT host used by a collection agency).
My state has laws saying if you tell a creditor to stop calling and only communicate with mail, they have to honor that. Yet I know people with bad credit, and the phone rings with "Unidentified" in the caller ID. He is pretty sure it is the collection agencies because it happens all day long, at least once every other hour. About every 10th one of these unidentified calls is a recorded message saying "call 1-913-xxx-xxxx" or some number like that.
How can collection agencies circumvent the law? How can someone prove it is them?
Why would a website want to offer this kind of service and put themselves in legal jeopardy?
And could traditional phone companies block them the way spam is blocked, to say anything originating from their service is blocked? I hope the telemarketers don't start using this kind of system. I am on the do not call list, and suddenly the number from which telemarketers call has switched from USA numbers to numbers located in Canada.
LOL. So they buy their software from other companies and then kill the competition? When will other companies wake up and see it is a trojan horse?
Would it be illegal if 5 or 6 smaller companies got together to discuss strategies to compete with Microsoft? Microsoft is big, probably much bigger than the next 10 OS software companies.
That last response depleted my brain of enough oxygen to properly address your points in this editorial. But I will anwser one thing, as I am sure it will probably interest and amuse you the most.
What logic puzzle? Are you messing with me? You're messing with me.
On every cover of playboy, they hide a small bunny with bowtie. The time it takes to find this hidden rabit can be used to determine IQ. I know it sounds amiss, but within my social group, it works. The members generally considered smart seem to find it quicker. Others never seem to find it. Not scientific at all, but fun for coctail parties, and an acceptable reason to whip out a playboy in public.
If you read playboys website FAQ, they comment on the hidden bunny:
Why is a Rabbit Head always hidden on the cover?
The tradition began in the Sixties as a lighthearted way to challenge readers.
Their website will also instruct you how to fold a dollar bill to see a rabbit head. Rabbit heads are everywhere!
I would close by saying if you trully want to become enlightened, bathe yourself in the playboy philosophy. As Reverend Roy Larson states: "Playboy is more than just a handbook for the young-man-about-town: It's a sort of bible which defines his values, shapes his personality, sets his goals, dictates his choices and governs his decisions. The Playboy philosophy has become...a sort of substitute religion."
I think it is a more fundamental issue than that. Who is raising the children? Government or a family? Now I think you missed the point I was making. This is not Iran or some dictatorship, where government will damn well make sure you raise your kid the way government wants. This is the USA, where if I believe in God and Jesus and want to live as prescribed in the Bible, I should be free to do so. I am not forcing my religious beliefs on anyone, there is no seperation of church and state issue here. I am not getting any public funds, I am not performing any public service. What I would be doing is trying to raise my children to live a meaningful life based on some widely accepeted religious doctrine. This is not based on woodland farries. I can see, if you don't believe in God it could be easy for you to view a family who believes in God to be illogical. But as the Oliver Holmes said "The law is not logic, it is experience". You must admit there is a differance between an Alabama Supreme Court Justice placing the 10 commandments in the courthouse and a family exercising their religious beliefs in private. What if there was no question to the health of a child, but it was the health of the father who turned down medical help? Should he be prosecuted. Police are pretty smart, and probably can tell the differance between true child abuse and a family exersizing their religion.
we must have some objective measure that allows us to define neglect and abuse!
Okay, how about if the parents are the direct proximal cause of the injuries?
We are? Name one.
You misunderstood my statement. I was trying to contrast the differance of how society has changed. At one point and time the Church executed those who were in opposition to its policy. If I remember high school history, I think the settlement at Jamestown would expel members from the settlement (and certain death) if they missed church services. Now we have a society where government will relegate private religious practices in the house. If a child gets Lukemia, and medicine can heal it but the parents decide to use prayer instead, I don't think government should arrest those parents. Why? If they are wrong, they lose a child. I could not imagine a worse punishment than that. I know for a non-believer that is hard to understand, but you must admit Christianity is not some "woodland fairy" and has historical precedence and validity. If nothing else, admit the absurdity at the rigidness of extremes at both ends of history, from forcing the bible on people to threatening to jail those who exersize their faith and put thier lives on the line to that end.
If you want that, you're free to move to Iran or some other fundamentalist dictatorship
Hell no! I'm a veteran, who served our blessed country.
But in exchange for the freedom to own property and no government death squads, don't throw a hissy fit because there's a set of house rules already in place that I'm pretty happy with.
This is once again where I believe your narrow vision does not serve you very well. You have something at stake by looking from the other persons viewpoint. I could say it is about tolerance, but that would be to cliche. I happen to believe the right to own property and be free is a natural God given right. I do not believe those are rights a government can give to people, those rights are inherent with the people. What government can do is be an agreement among all the people for their collective benifit. When government gets into the nuances of daily private life, then government has become too big. Do we want a government where one day zealots might be able to intrude into the family unit? Regardless of how wise as your policy might be, and as true as your beliefs might be; by allowing government to enter into private family considerations (which does no harm), then that same standard might be applied if ever more fanatical religious politicians beca
I would suggest that raitings have nothing to do with the quality of a movie. Hitchcock made suspenseful movies not because of what he showed, but because of what he did not. The problem is screenplays and directors are not masters of their craft, they have to rely on the cheap over used themes and plots to keep a persons interest for 90 minutes. That is why I have moved on to foriegn cinema. You can have more sensuality, more intelligent conversation, and more interest in a PG movie than in an American R film.
Allow me to expound a hypothetical here that will raise some interesting questions in the thinking person's mind. An Amish child has a condition that requires advanced medicine and is 100% curable, but would require the use of advanced technology. The parents decide: (1) to use their local doctor, who has no reasonable chance of curing the child, and the child dies, or (2) to use advanced medicine and the child is cured.
In the case of option (1), I would say that the state would have to prosecute the parents for child neglect/abuse. This is the same thing that happened about 15 years ago when some crazy cultists (Jehovah's Witnesses, I think) decided that they would only use prayer to heal their children, and one of their kids died from a strep throat or something like that. The parents went to jail, as I think they should have, and the kids that managed to survive that household were taken away and placed into foster homes with parents that will hopefully, like, you know, care enough about them to toss 'em an antibiotic when they're running a 103-degree fever from a curable disease.
What about freedom? It seems to me that you would be all for arresting someone, who while walking across a bridge sees a person about to jump, but does nothing to stop it.
There was a time people were jailed and executed for not believeing in God. Now we want to jail people because they do believe in God.
It seems that most of your posts get back to the same thing- that you know better than the other person. I can't imagine that my thinking, as a matter of public policy would be better than a father and mothers love for their child. If they want to express their faith to their child, and they trully believe God will make a miracle, they should be free to do so.
It is a tough issue because most would want to do something. But we can't assume we know best for others.
I can't help but ask one question. What would you do if you died and realized there was a God and heaven, and God asked you why you had no faith in him, and forced another to abandon their faith?
I have to bite at this one. Hehehe. It is like carving a roast.
If you've studied economics, then you know that advances in technology make people more efficient, allow them to do more, and generally increase the standard of living and everyone's utility.
I will not say you are wrong. But I would not make such a blanket statement. I know some people, who seem normal, but would rather chat with a IM than in person. Healthy? I know some people who browse the web endlessly rather than going out and doing something. Healthy?
But that is just computers. In general, I think technology can be good. But it can be bad as well. I knew a guy who was a truck driver. Last time I spoke with him, he said they installed a GPS device in his truck. To make matters worse, they gave him a cell phone, and if the GPS indicates he is off by even a little, they call him. He has to time his bathroom breaks. No more driving at his pace.
Another example is the video camera. Now they are everywhere and everyone is being taped whenever in public. In Boston, the police installed over 1000 cameras to record the public because of the political convention. Now that the convention is over, the police decided to keep the camera's up and running. Next thing you know, the FBI is going to download library databases to see what you are reading. To me it seems that technology is slowly stripping away out liberty.
I could go on with the examples, but I will give one more. Look at all the new places that advertising is being injected in your life. Does it bother you that Coca-Cola is now paying TV shows and movies for product placement?
What I am getting at with this is not that technology is bad, but the amount of abuse a person can do is increased in direct proportion to the technology. Look at spam for example.
If you disagree with this, think about the early 20th Century America where the average worker worked 14 to 16 hour days, got no breaks, started working at around the age of 12, and worked right up until the day s/he died.
This is easy. Blame the capitalist, and greed. Here my lack of education is going to show, but I remember in high school reading about a capatalist who started his own buisness, and rented out houses to all his workers. He owned the grocery store and everything the workers needed. He got workers by promising a great life, but quickly got them so in debt they had to keep working and could not quit. It is human nature that capatalism alows these cruel kinds of things to happen.
Read something, dammit.
I know this was not directed at me, but I might as well respond. I read playboy. And I love the logic puzzle they put on the cover every month. They say you can tell a person's IQ by how quick they solve the problem on the cover of the magazine.
I want America to push its agenda on the world to some extent.
Think this statement through a bit more. You would have a homogonous world. No more exotic places to visit. No more unique cultures. I am a star trek fan, and would appeal to any trekie based on the prime directive. Leave cultures alone to develop as they would, to have their own unique experiance. I say this not for the amish, after all they live on USA territory, but for the USA in dealing with foriegn countries.
I want us to promote democracy around the world and cause people to be free
What is your definition of free? How about we change that statement and remove the word free and replace it with happy? Would you stand behind that statement, even if those people were not free in the sense that a capitalist would think free?
I have to admit, I find your posts one sided. You only see the world from one view point, yours. Not that there is anything wrong with it. But when the ego starts telling you how others must live, in far off places, that is when it gets boarderline dangerous. That is what McViegh did with the Oklahoma City bombing. That is what the terrorists did with the World Trade Center. They had their minds set they were right, and there was no other possible way of looking at things. Now if the world did remain isolated, none of this would have happened.
I like how you try and sneak Peter Jennings in your list with O'Rielly and Limbaugh. Limbaugh was discredited around the time the Bell Curve was published, where he agreed that balck persons are of lower intellectual ability than other races. He sealed his fate as a nobody when everyone discovered his drug habit (and that he forced his employees to buy drugs for him, all while advocating on his show that drug users get jail time). What a hypocrite. O'Rielly is not a news person either, having such experiance as hosting Inside Edition and commenting on celeberty weddings and National Enquirer style exposes. His show is as absurd as Howard Stern, and no more serious, as he often makes a mockery while debating. You ever see him have a tempor tantrum when someone presents him with facts? He beats on the table and crys the other person stop. LOL. Yeah, those are real news people.
I suggest you go back to your bar stool and order another drink, while asking the bartender to turn up the TV when O'Rielly is on, while everyone treaks you like a kook.
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It is nice to know he was that way in person too. I feel bad he is sick, but I guess that is a part of life. I hope he does not suffer.
I love it, except the macrovision copy protection. Who would want to copy a DVD using something with a 266mhz cpu? even if they get some USB DVD drive, where would it get copied? Some 512 meg flash card?
I think this would be a fine replacement for a laptop for those who want to check email or surf the web where there is a wireless service. I would also think at 640*480, it would make for a so-so word processor, not bad for taking to the library. And the fact that its less than one pound would be a huge selling point for me.
Come to think of it, how is this different than a PDA?
ROFL! That is genius. It is one thing to anwser the phone as dominoes pizza, another thing to call a dominoes and place an order for him. LOL. I dunno what you do for a living, but whatever it is you ain't being paid enough. :)
I see your point of view. But can we also add that since there is a problem, that perhaps we should search for a solution rather than assigning blame? I think the people in debt are suffering as it is, trying to pay off their debts, bills, rent, food, and whatever else they need. It would suck to have a job and pay as much as you can, but still owe more than you can pay, and have people label you a crook (I know you did not use that term, but that is what it must feel like). It is very stressful to be unable to pay what is owed. These are good people who have fallen on hard times. They won't have the luxery of buying new cars with low or no interest rates. They won't be able to buy a house. It is not like they snuck one past the system. They are hurt, and I am sure that most of them want to do the right thing and get out of debt.
I have had dealings with my phone company too. It was a wireless service, where they charged more than what I used. I called them, and would always resolve the issue with the costumer service representative and say the problem was fixed. But the bills stayed the same. I finally came to the conclusion they would say anything on the phone, but would not do anything. I did not get anything trully resolved until i sent them some letters, demanding clarification of the bill and contesting the charges. It took a long time to clear things up, and for a two week period they disconnected my phone. I wanted to cancel my contract, but they had that stupid $300 dollar early termination fee, so I did not. But as soon as my service was up, I switched. And whenever any friends ask about what cell phones i used/liked, I always make it a point to tell them Sprint sucks and PCS stands for poor-crappy-service. Not to mention my new wireless service gets less static, and works in more places than my old one.
First, she is a woman. I think guys are narurally more inclined to think "I can fix a beater", just like a guy could fix a flat on the road, where more women would call for a tow or service. Women are less likely to want to stick their head under the hood and look around. So for her, she wanted something reliable. She knows nothing about cars, and would rather pay for something which runs, than worry about getting ripped off at a car garadge. And I am not saying that to be sexist. I know a few guys who change their own oil, but I don't know one woman who does.
Second, I wonder where you get your cars. When she looked, I think the cheapest car on any lot was $1500 or $2000. There were no running $500 cars. And even those $2000 cars had over 100,000 miles on them.
But I agree with your point. If a person knows something about cars, it is much smarter to buy a used peice of crap car and dump it when it dies a year later than to borrow money to buy something newer. When I was in high school (many, many years ago) I worked a summer and from that money purchased a beater. It lasted me over 2 years and I was happy with the use i got out of it.
If you only have $1000 or $1500 saved up, that is not enough to buy a good running used car for cash (unless you know a mechanic who would be willing to spend a week searching car lots looking for a super deal). So you need a car dealership who will extend credit on a used car that is a good runner (something a year or two old). If your credit is not perfect, then the dealerships have high interest rates, and can charge you anything for the car because they know other dealerships might not offer any credit. So the person either has to pay the high interest and whatever price the dealership sets, or the person can spend another month looking for a dealership where they will get the same bad deal. Meanwhile, the person still needs to get to work.
Plus, that woman I knew thought that by buying the car, even at a high interest rate and overpaying, that she could fix her credit. She still drives the car, and makes all her payments on time, but is scared to death of owing thousands of dollars more than what the car is worth. For example, if the car gets in a wreak, and the insurance company pays the blue book value for the auto, she would still owe thousands more than that. Driving to her is stressfull.
You might have passed them up, but thousands figure, "i'll get the card for the free shirt or cd, then i'll throw away the card". Then they get the card, and figure $15 a month minimum payment is not that bad, why not upgrade my computer? Multiply that scenereo with 4 or 5 cards, and it can be a large amount of debt for a student.
I am giving you credit. You resisted the free give aways, some don't. Many don't even think about it, they just see "free stuff" and figure why not get it. There should be better education, but most of what people know about credit they learn from their family, if their family talks about it. When I was in high school, we had personal economics, but we never really learned what debt can be like. The teacher did not call us at dinner time to cuss us out.
I also believe the credit card companies are trying to get students hooked into debt early. Why not just offer a service, and not have all the free give aways? Is it because if there were no free stuff, students might think "do i really need a credit card" and would think about it more rationally.
Do you think it is reasonable to go for weeks/months/years without paying off what you owe?
Sometimes it is not about what you owe, but what you can pay. Do you seriously think someone will pay a credit card company when they can't feed themselves or pay rent? Those who get in deep trouble with debt normally lost a job or had something happen which changed how much they make or have in the bank. They are not people who make the same amount of money and have a nice fat bank account who say "for the next 6 months, i am not paying my bills just to tick off the credit companies". They really don't have the money. And if, for example there is some medical debt of $20,000 (which is what a kidney stone surgery costs), sometimes the interest on that debt can be more than the person can pay. Under those circumstances the person will be stuck with the same debt regardless of what they do.
The whole point of credit is a contract. As with most contracts, there are courts to resolve them when they go bad, and one side does not satisfy what is expected of them. But how many times have you seen one side of a party harrass the other when a contract goes bad? Can I call my local cable company president at home every time cable goes out or I have a bad picture? Can I call the Garbage Collection president at home because they did not fully empty my garbage, and demand he comes and picks it up that night? Or would a resonable person send a letter, and if the problem was not resolved and it was worth it to them to file a lawsuit, to go to court? What is resonable here?
You must be lucky to never have had a major sickness in the family. Something like that can drain all bank account funds.
And while I am not defending those who owe money, do you have any idea how many college kids get 4 or 5 credit cards, thrown their way. Heck, they hand out t-shirts and phones and cd's for students who sign up. Students should be a little smarter, but it can be hard to resist the free give away.
Even if the debt is valid, do you think it resonable for collection agencies to call every day. It stinks of harrasment. Perhaps the credit card companies should be a little more picky with who they grant credit to. But for them, a $500 credit line which is not paid, and has interest of 19% or more, and a $30 a month over the limit fee, and another $39 a month late fee, can easily become over $2000 before the credit card sells the debt to some collection agency for a profit. Then the collection agency adds on a collection fee. You could easily see that small debt go up ten fold. They make money getting people into debt.
And I know this person who needed a car for work. Their credit was so-so, not perfect but everything was paid. The dealership sold a low end used chevy for $8000 even though the blue book value was $7000. It was the only dealership willing to finance a car for her, and at a high interest rate for 4 years. She did the math and found out at the end of 5 years she would have paid over $14,000 for that car. And 2 1/2 years into paying the debt, the car's blue book is now worth $3000 but she owes $7000 left. If that car breaks and she can't get to work, how can she pay that debt. She will not have a car but will have a monthly payment due. That is how people get in trouble.
My state has laws saying if you tell a creditor to stop calling and only communicate with mail, they have to honor that. Yet I know people with bad credit, and the phone rings with "Unidentified" in the caller ID. He is pretty sure it is the collection agencies because it happens all day long, at least once every other hour. About every 10th one of these unidentified calls is a recorded message saying "call 1-913-xxx-xxxx" or some number like that.
How can collection agencies circumvent the law? How can someone prove it is them?
Why would a website want to offer this kind of service and put themselves in legal jeopardy?
And could traditional phone companies block them the way spam is blocked, to say anything originating from their service is blocked? I hope the telemarketers don't start using this kind of system. I am on the do not call list, and suddenly the number from which telemarketers call has switched from USA numbers to numbers located in Canada.
Would it be illegal if 5 or 6 smaller companies got together to discuss strategies to compete with Microsoft? Microsoft is big, probably much bigger than the next 10 OS software companies.
What logic puzzle? Are you messing with me? You're messing with me.
On every cover of playboy, they hide a small bunny with bowtie. The time it takes to find this hidden rabit can be used to determine IQ. I know it sounds amiss, but within my social group, it works. The members generally considered smart seem to find it quicker. Others never seem to find it. Not scientific at all, but fun for coctail parties, and an acceptable reason to whip out a playboy in public.
If you read playboys website FAQ, they comment on the hidden bunny:
Why is a Rabbit Head always hidden on the cover?
The tradition began in the Sixties as a lighthearted way to challenge readers.
Their website will also instruct you how to fold a dollar bill to see a rabbit head. Rabbit heads are everywhere!
I would close by saying if you trully want to become enlightened, bathe yourself in the playboy philosophy. As Reverend Roy Larson states: "Playboy is more than just a handbook for the young-man-about-town: It's a sort of bible which defines his values, shapes his personality, sets his goals, dictates his choices and governs his decisions. The Playboy philosophy has become...a sort of substitute religion."
Check out the playboy philosophy at http://www.playboy.com/worldofplayboy/hmh/philosop hy/
I think it is a more fundamental issue than that. Who is raising the children? Government or a family? Now I think you missed the point I was making. This is not Iran or some dictatorship, where government will damn well make sure you raise your kid the way government wants. This is the USA, where if I believe in God and Jesus and want to live as prescribed in the Bible, I should be free to do so. I am not forcing my religious beliefs on anyone, there is no seperation of church and state issue here. I am not getting any public funds, I am not performing any public service. What I would be doing is trying to raise my children to live a meaningful life based on some widely accepeted religious doctrine. This is not based on woodland farries. I can see, if you don't believe in God it could be easy for you to view a family who believes in God to be illogical. But as the Oliver Holmes said "The law is not logic, it is experience". You must admit there is a differance between an Alabama Supreme Court Justice placing the 10 commandments in the courthouse and a family exercising their religious beliefs in private. What if there was no question to the health of a child, but it was the health of the father who turned down medical help? Should he be prosecuted. Police are pretty smart, and probably can tell the differance between true child abuse and a family exersizing their religion.
we must have some objective measure that allows us to define neglect and abuse!
Okay, how about if the parents are the direct proximal cause of the injuries?
We are? Name one.
You misunderstood my statement. I was trying to contrast the differance of how society has changed. At one point and time the Church executed those who were in opposition to its policy. If I remember high school history, I think the settlement at Jamestown would expel members from the settlement (and certain death) if they missed church services. Now we have a society where government will relegate private religious practices in the house. If a child gets Lukemia, and medicine can heal it but the parents decide to use prayer instead, I don't think government should arrest those parents. Why? If they are wrong, they lose a child. I could not imagine a worse punishment than that. I know for a non-believer that is hard to understand, but you must admit Christianity is not some "woodland fairy" and has historical precedence and validity. If nothing else, admit the absurdity at the rigidness of extremes at both ends of history, from forcing the bible on people to threatening to jail those who exersize their faith and put thier lives on the line to that end.
If you want that, you're free to move to Iran or some other fundamentalist dictatorship
Hell no! I'm a veteran, who served our blessed country.
But in exchange for the freedom to own property and no government death squads, don't throw a hissy fit because there's a set of house rules already in place that I'm pretty happy with.
This is once again where I believe your narrow vision does not serve you very well. You have something at stake by looking from the other persons viewpoint. I could say it is about tolerance, but that would be to cliche. I happen to believe the right to own property and be free is a natural God given right. I do not believe those are rights a government can give to people, those rights are inherent with the people. What government can do is be an agreement among all the people for their collective benifit. When government gets into the nuances of daily private life, then government has become too big. Do we want a government where one day zealots might be able to intrude into the family unit? Regardless of how wise as your policy might be, and as true as your beliefs might be; by allowing government to enter into private family considerations (which does no harm), then that same standard might be applied if ever more fanatical religious politicians beca
I would suggest that raitings have nothing to do with the quality of a movie. Hitchcock made suspenseful movies not because of what he showed, but because of what he did not. The problem is screenplays and directors are not masters of their craft, they have to rely on the cheap over used themes and plots to keep a persons interest for 90 minutes. That is why I have moved on to foriegn cinema. You can have more sensuality, more intelligent conversation, and more interest in a PG movie than in an American R film.
In the case of option (1), I would say that the state would have to prosecute the parents for child neglect/abuse. This is the same thing that happened about 15 years ago when some crazy cultists (Jehovah's Witnesses, I think) decided that they would only use prayer to heal their children, and one of their kids died from a strep throat or something like that. The parents went to jail, as I think they should have, and the kids that managed to survive that household were taken away and placed into foster homes with parents that will hopefully, like, you know, care enough about them to toss 'em an antibiotic when they're running a 103-degree fever from a curable disease.
What about freedom? It seems to me that you would be all for arresting someone, who while walking across a bridge sees a person about to jump, but does nothing to stop it.
There was a time people were jailed and executed for not believeing in God. Now we want to jail people because they do believe in God.
It seems that most of your posts get back to the same thing- that you know better than the other person. I can't imagine that my thinking, as a matter of public policy would be better than a father and mothers love for their child. If they want to express their faith to their child, and they trully believe God will make a miracle, they should be free to do so.
It is a tough issue because most would want to do something. But we can't assume we know best for others.
I can't help but ask one question. What would you do if you died and realized there was a God and heaven, and God asked you why you had no faith in him, and forced another to abandon their faith?
If you've studied economics, then you know that advances in technology make people more efficient, allow them to do more, and generally increase the standard of living and everyone's utility.
I will not say you are wrong. But I would not make such a blanket statement. I know some people, who seem normal, but would rather chat with a IM than in person. Healthy? I know some people who browse the web endlessly rather than going out and doing something. Healthy?
But that is just computers. In general, I think technology can be good. But it can be bad as well. I knew a guy who was a truck driver. Last time I spoke with him, he said they installed a GPS device in his truck. To make matters worse, they gave him a cell phone, and if the GPS indicates he is off by even a little, they call him. He has to time his bathroom breaks. No more driving at his pace.
Another example is the video camera. Now they are everywhere and everyone is being taped whenever in public. In Boston, the police installed over 1000 cameras to record the public because of the political convention. Now that the convention is over, the police decided to keep the camera's up and running. Next thing you know, the FBI is going to download library databases to see what you are reading. To me it seems that technology is slowly stripping away out liberty.
I could go on with the examples, but I will give one more. Look at all the new places that advertising is being injected in your life. Does it bother you that Coca-Cola is now paying TV shows and movies for product placement?
What I am getting at with this is not that technology is bad, but the amount of abuse a person can do is increased in direct proportion to the technology. Look at spam for example.
If you disagree with this, think about the early 20th Century America where the average worker worked 14 to 16 hour days, got no breaks, started working at around the age of 12, and worked right up until the day s/he died.
This is easy. Blame the capitalist, and greed. Here my lack of education is going to show, but I remember in high school reading about a capatalist who started his own buisness, and rented out houses to all his workers. He owned the grocery store and everything the workers needed. He got workers by promising a great life, but quickly got them so in debt they had to keep working and could not quit. It is human nature that capatalism alows these cruel kinds of things to happen.
Read something, dammit.
I know this was not directed at me, but I might as well respond. I read playboy. And I love the logic puzzle they put on the cover every month. They say you can tell a person's IQ by how quick they solve the problem on the cover of the magazine.
I want America to push its agenda on the world to some extent.
Think this statement through a bit more. You would have a homogonous world. No more exotic places to visit. No more unique cultures. I am a star trek fan, and would appeal to any trekie based on the prime directive. Leave cultures alone to develop as they would, to have their own unique experiance. I say this not for the amish, after all they live on USA territory, but for the USA in dealing with foriegn countries.
I want us to promote democracy around the world and cause people to be free
What is your definition of free? How about we change that statement and remove the word free and replace it with happy? Would you stand behind that statement, even if those people were not free in the sense that a capitalist would think free?
I have to admit, I find your posts one sided. You only see the world from one view point, yours. Not that there is anything wrong with it. But when the ego starts telling you how others must live, in far off places, that is when it gets boarderline dangerous. That is what McViegh did with the Oklahoma City bombing. That is what the terrorists did with the World Trade Center. They had their minds set they were right, and there was no other possible way of looking at things. Now if the world did remain isolated, none of this would have happened.
I suggest you go back to your bar stool and order another drink, while asking the bartender to turn up the TV when O'Rielly is on, while everyone treaks you like a kook.