Credit: Politico.com

As I watched the honored members of Congress, Supreme Court and the President’s cabinet file into the room, the question that demanded my attention was “This is the best our nation has to offer?  These are the best and brightest?”  The answer is clear: No, they are not.  They are the cream of what has risen to the middle.

Listening to the President, I became mindful of some good news.  They don’t need to be the best or the brightest.  They only need to be willing and determined to make progress for *us* rather than themselves and those who have lined their pockets.

President Obama is a very gifted speaker; his speech was inspiring.  Listening to him, I made a few notes, noted a few key points:

• He dared to call it “drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next.”  That was courageous.
• Next, a point I had to disagree on.  Our nation’s North Star is not JOBS. It is a greater Gross National Product; we need to be MAKING things here.  THAT drives the jobs and prosperity.
• 3-D printing, this has come at me twice in a week, the second time by our President, so I’d say it’s very much worth investigating, learning about and shouldering up to this manufacturing process.
• Fact check: Our cars do NOT now go twice the distance on a gallon of gas.  The 1980′s Geo Metro, powered by a 3-cylinder Suzuki engine, driven by a manual transmission, got 45-53 MPG — THIRTY YEARS AGO, Mr. President.  We need to get back to basics in many ways, when it comes to transportation, Mr. President.And “aging infrastructure”?  To be sure, we’re behind Europe and other civilized places, but our entire nation is yet in its infancy.  Much of the infrastructure is simply too recent to be called “aging.”  Europe has banisters still in use that are older than our entire country.  What we need is modernization.  That doesn’t mean repairing 70,000 bridges.  It means rebuilding that infrastructure with modern means and tactics.  Cars shouldn’t be waiting for trains to pass.  Both should either travel together or above and below each other.
• It’s a noble aspiration, making quality pre-school available to every child in the U.S., but if the cost is $200 per week, it’s also obviously not obtainable.  How about just improving what start they DO get, and maybe starting them sooner.  Because this is just PART of why Europe’s young people are ahead of our own.  Another key aspect is that Europeans don’t take time off of school every time the wind blows.  Their dedicated job is to study, to LEARN.  School isn’t just a daytime babysitter in Europe.  LEARNING must be the goal.  Then our high school students will catch up with Europe’s.  But let’s set the goal higher.  Let’s figure out how to surpass them.
• The President has repeatedly stated that the promise of America is that if one works hard, one can get ahead.  No, sir, Mr. President.  If one works SMART one gets ahead.  No respect to the hard-working, but that doesn’t get one ahead.  That just gets by.  Fortune favors the bold… and the clever.
• A point I feel very strongly about: Tax credits are NOT money.  What good do tax credits do a company if it has no profits, no money to be paying taxes ON?  Saying “we’ll take less from you” doesn’t provide that small business with the funding needed to grow.  So let’s lay off the empty rhetoric.
• Same thing with housing loans.  The responsible home owners with good credit ratings?  Rather, let’s take a good honest look at the credit rating SYSTEM that the banks are using.  It isn’t designed to decide what a person can or will afford.  It’s designed to frighten people into towing the mark set by the banks, into paying whatever they want to charge, whether that money is deserved or not.  Fix the process, that aspect, the banking system, Mr. President.  Rein them in, and rid us of the credit rating system as it is now.  Most everyone who is actually out there in the world has credit RATING problems somewhere, even if they are credit-worthy.  Then again, so long as tax credits are thought of as the same as money, it’s only to be expected that there will be confusion between who can pay and who will do so.

Those were the points of contention.  On the whole, it was an inspiring speech, and the news was favorable.  I’ll close with quotes from President Obama:  ”We are CITIZENS”… and that means more than just a legal status.  It’s what we are, it’s what we do… when we are at our best, being responsible for each other.  And Congress wasn’t sent to Washington to be perfect.  We sent them there to make progress, to do the best they can.  Together, we and our representatives are now writing the next chapter of this nation’s tale, he said.  Right you are, Mr. President.  So, elected representatives, see to it that this is a glorious, triumphant chapter that sees ALL people empowered.

Thank you.  Gawd bless these United States of America.

I leave you with this, from the other side of the world, so we remember that the United States is far from the only nation that matters, nor is it the only one with beauty we can learn from:

Two separate articles from two entirely different publications came out two days apart — from two different parts of the world.  The Minnesota Public Radio website ran a story about girls’ breasts budding, universally accepted as the beginning of puberty, at a much younger age.  Halfway around the world, Washington Post reported that the boy’s choir in Leipzig, Germany has to worry about essentially the same thing — that boys’ voices are changing earlier.  Stefan Altner, manager of the St. Thomas Boys Choir reports that when he started working at the choir in 1993, most voices broke when boys were 14 or 15, but the average is now closer to 13.

The problems don’t start and stop with how long the boys can continue to sing in sweet soprano, nor with girls needing a training bra earlier.  These girls are having other issues from it, physical and psychological burdens that can be quite serious medical concerns.   The article noted that “development at an earlier age can lead to depression and eating disorders, as well as stress for their families and peers.”

This isn’t entirely a new phenomenon.  In the mid 1700′s, boys’ voices changed between 17 and 18 there in Leipzig.  When the stresses of the War of Austrian Succession began in 1740, the age “spiked,” and some began questioning diet and stress as causes back then.

Another related article from the New York Times tells the story of a little girl in Fort Collins, Colorado, who began growing pubic hair at six years old!  The article goes on to point out that this is widespread.  Rather than address the issue, though, doctors are simply revising their definition of “Normal.”  Six year old girls have no business entering puberty.  Ten year old girls have no business needing a bra.  Wake up, people!  Things are going VERY, VERY wrong!

I saw the first two separate articles and recognized the correlation.  The causes are plain enough to see.  What we’re eating, the meat and milk so full of growth hormones, combined with the stresses of the way we’ve let our lives go haywire, have taken their toll across the board, with people of all ages.  So what will it take for us to recognize the pattern, see the writing on the wall and start DOING something about it?

What to do?  Start with what you feed yourselves and your families.  It wasn’t that long ago that we took raw food sources, fruits, vegetables and grains, and made food at home.   Junk food has not been with us all that long.  It wasn’t all that long ago that we ate healthy meals most of the time.  In a time when fast food is neither quick nor inexpensive, it makes less and less sense to grab grub at the drive-through.  Start there.  Dump the fast and frozen foods.  Then:

• Eat real food, made from raw ingredients at home.
• Switch to a largely vegetarian or vegan diet.  There’s ample evidence to prove that meat is not essential, that we’re actually healthier without it.
• Push for organic and non-GMO food sources on your table.
• Stop using plastic that is not specifically sold as BPA-free. BPA is decidedly affecting us and our hormone levels.
• Start eating meals at home together, slowing down the pace, lowering the stress.

Source: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/04/09/daily-circuit-puberty-young-girls/
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/puberty-before-age-10-a-new-normal.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all 

There’s another sort of evolving, sociological transition, which can and does occur in just decades.   For example, within the past 60 years, smoking tobacco has gone from being “cool” to being anathema in mainstream American culture.  (Smoking continues to be far more acceptable and prevalent in health-conscious Europe.  Go figure.)  In that same timeframe, we’ve gone from treating black people as second class citizens, to electing a black man President.  Gay people have gone from hiding in dark alleyways to being openly accepted in the U.S. military.  Indeed, Bob Dylan, the times, they are a’changin’.

What’s next for us?  Will it happen in the 2012 that is now upon us?  What’s next for us is huge, enormous, monumental.  But in this case, it’s not just a matter of a shift in perspective in any one society.  This time, it is going to affect humanity all of mankind, on a planetary basis.  How do I know?  Because it has to.  We have no choice.  We will either evolve, or we will quite literally die.

At the most foundational level, mankind has long held the belief that his domination over the other the living beings on the planet is a God-given right.  It is that mistaken concept which has brought the planet’s oceans from brimming over with abundance to a very real and imminent threat of total annihilation in just a little over a century.  As of this date, humans have brought the oceans’ populations of fish down by NINETY PERCENT during that same past 100 years.  Credible expert opinion gives the planet’s oceans just 40 more years before they are utterly void of life.  Yet commercial fisheries continue to strip the ocean of her last remaining profits.  It is an undisputed fact that if the oceans die, we die too.  As of this date, March 14, 2012, it appears that the oceans would still be able to recover, if we were to halt our impacts immediately.  Make no mistake, though.  Our new-found superpowers are destroying this planet so rapidly that our species may not survive to see the dawn of the 22nd century.  And so, you see, we literally have no choice.  We MUST adapt, evolve socially, or we will die… and take out the rest of the planet with us as we commit suicide.

What can we do?  What must we do?  What must we change?  What must we do differently?  How do we stop this?

The answer is found in that one sublime difference of perspective.  We must realize that our purpose, our job and responsibility is that of STEWARDSHIP, not dominion.  We must recognize that the other living beings are not ours to do with as we please.  We must evolve to know that our fellow Earthlings are not unclaimed chattel, whether domestically raised or wild.  In doing so, in making that shift, that evolution, we will indeed become Homo Sapiens — the wise ones.  Whether domestic or wild, the creatures exist for their own purposes, think their own thoughts.  They are not ours to take from their families and natural environments, nor to imprison for our entertainment, nor to kill for food or profit.

What will we eat then?  We will eat what we have eaten since the time before history began: Everything else.  It is an inconvenient truth (for those who raise and sell animal flesh) that humans do not need animal flesh to survive, nor do we need it to be healthy.   Quite the contrary, in nearly all cases, we are far better off without ingesting meat.

JBS currently has 62 plants in 6 countries, slaughtering 87,290 cattle per day.

With 7 billion people on the planet today, and that number rising literally as you read this, we have no choice.  Neither our species nor our planet can sustain the farming that is necessary to raise and feed the sheer volume of animals we are slaughtering for their flesh.  Over ONE HUNDRED  THOUSAND cattle are slaughtered each and every day in the U.S. alone, far more pigs, and exponentially more chickens (15,000 per minute) to support our unhealthy addiction to meat.  The oceans are already depleted of fish.  The Passenger Pigeon was hunted to extinction at the beginning of the last century, as we began our transition to superpower.  We are out of options.  We have no choice but to go vegan to survive.

What happens next?  Already, vegetarian and vegan eaters are on a very fast rise.  The evolution is under way.  But will it happen fast enough?  This is not hyperbole: The earth is on a headfirst dive towards annihilation, and nothing less is going to stop that stoop into the abyss.  We must stand up against those who still see other living beings as something to kill, trap or enslave as they like.

They live their entire lives like this!

Humans have grown so arrogant, so full of hubris, that we accept most any validation, no matter how vapid or erroneous the excuse, to justify continuing our selfish actions.  Since that perspective is so toxic to us, we must eschew it entirely.  No longer can the tortures and killings be ignored.  We must stand up with a loud, clear voice and police ourselves, telling all who would kill or enslave fellow beings for any reason that their actions are reprehensible, archaic, superstitious, and will not be tolerated.  No, it is neither acceptable nor sustainable to to feed grain to animals so that we can eat them.  It is time to cut out the middle-man and eat the plants ourselves.  THAT is sustainable.

It is also not okay to continue to breed ourselves as if we were a prey species.  Seven billion people is already overpopulated.  No matter how much we may value our own opinion of ourselves, few couples can justify replacing themselves.   Since there is no World Order/Government, it is incumbent upon ourselves to have no more than one child.  Not all people will observe this, which makes it all the more important that those of us who know better do everything we can to stave off the rising population.  “Yes, but not in my back yard” is not an acceptable caveat.  The solar panels, wind generators, tide generators, decreased reproduction and vegan eating are necessary, prescribed, and the duty of us all.   We all must evolve to survive.

It would be easily to misunderstand the concept, to think that if we do so, the genes that survive will be those of the people who refused to evolve. This is a fallacy for the simple reason that those who refuse to evolve in their own back yard will be the first to starve to death, leaving the evolved humans free to return to a sane pattern of growth once the crisis is over.  So, you see, the evolved humans are those who will survive.  Thus the evolution of homo sapiens is the only thing that will allow for his survival.  Those genes which cannot or will not do so most certainly will not survive.

Here is the timeline for our survival: First, we voluntarily limit ourselves to one well-raised child per couple per lifetime.  Concurrently, we recognize the inherent right of all living beings to life and liberty, and embrace vegan eating.  By this, the population slowly begins to decline, eventually returning to sustainable numbers.   Meanwhile, factory farming of meat and commercial fishing are phased out by the lack of demand.  This gives the planet the break needed to recover.

The Omega system uses LED lights for 90% less energy, and grows 5 times as much food -- without pesticides!

Many of the vegans will realize the satisfaction and better health found in a life which is connected to the earth, and begin all manner of growing organically, at home.  Some will use window boxes as gardens.  Some will build small hothouses.  Others will turn to hydrophonics.  Growing seasons will be extended.  Wellness will be regained by those changes, while the medical technologies which sustained longer lives despite the chemical toxicity in our foods continues to advance.  We can realistically expect lifespans and quality of life to improve as a result of these changes.  Others will come to realize the values and promise of evolving as well, and soon much of the planet will evolve, 99th Monkey style.  As we remove the pressures of pollution and harvest from nature, the planet will begin to recover.  If we act now, the damage done by the past 100+ years of indifference towards our decadence will be reversed, and mankind will finally be able to welcome a new prosperity for the entire planet, finally acting as the stewards we should have been all along.

Does this sound like a religion?  If it does, then so be it.  There is no prescription for killing, torture or death within it.  There are only life and prosperity, as we cherish all beings and take our true place alongside (not over) our fellow Earthlings.

I’ve had to part ways with people over the difference — people that I would otherwise have gotten along with.  We get into it because they insult President Obama in some crude fashion.  Or insist that gays shouldn’t have the right to Marriage because God said so.  But when pressed for justification as to why this should be the case in a country with a secular government, they mutter something unintelligible and parrot another insulting, mindless barrage of regurgitated tripe about the many ways that two people of the same gender being legally married will most certainly destroy the nation.  When it comes down to it, the beliefs of the Right Wing are nothing short of religion for them.  Their particular brand of repression of all that is different is knee-jerk.  Arguing against their positions is pointless because they can’t justify why they believe it.  They can only firmly insist that they do, and that failing to observe their wisdom will end in horrible ills and make God cry.

What about civil war, though?  When two sides are separated by irreconcilable differences, that’s the eventual result.  Neither will be ruled by the other, yet in our two-party system, it’s either that or literally nothing, no progress.   The more astute amongst us realize that both the Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same coin, but they seldom bother to think about why that is the case.  It comes of compromise.  They compromise so much, though, that they are no longer individual, distinct, or functional.   Alternatively, they can butt heads and likewise get nothing accomplished.   In either case, all that transpires is the maintaining of the status quo, and that is not enough, not acceptable to the average citizen on a long-term basis.  People elect others in the hope that they will change things for the Better, (as defined by what they want to see different.)  Both sides are unhappy with moderate actions… and that will eventually bring us further into apathy, or into a civil war.

Is there a way out?  The introduction of a strong, viable 3rd party might help, but neither of the current parties is going to allow that.  Why should they split the pie 3 ways, they think, when they only have to split it in half now?  (Of course, the practical truth would be that, by political negotiations, 2/3 of the people would get something of what they want that way, as opposed to the stagnation happening now.)

What do you think?  Do you think we can come together, or are we heading towards a civil war?

In the last quarter of 2011, the Postal Service lost $3.3 billion. That sounds like justification to cut back.  But it’s not.  MOST of that was from retirement and healthcare benefits owed to future retirees.  The USPS claims it will lose $18 billion in 2015 if nothing is done.  And averting such a loss is only prudent.  The means of doing so, however, is vastly flawed.  There’s no need to add 35,000 people to the unemployment lines.

The price of sending a 1st Class letter is by far the best bargain in the country, if not the world.  Raising the price by 10 cents is a substantial percentage increase in revenues, and STILL a huge bargain.  The post office has been systematically increasing fees on everything else BUT that service, which only serves to aggravate the consumer when he arrives to find that the up-charges and insurance are more than the postage itself.

The USPS is in dire need of a restructuring, a rethinking of the ways in which they charge.  The model they’ve been operating under was one of monopoly.  With other carriers taking packages, (and responsibility for whether those packages arrive or not) they need to be more than competitive.  Stop nickel-and-diming me about electronic proof of delivery.  Stop charging me EXTRA to insure that you deliver my package as you were paid to do in the first place.  Charge a fair price for a  comparable product, and then all the mail can go to sixty cents per envelope without any sincere objections.   DO step UP staffing.  The long lines have to go.   With that increase, you should have plenty of money with which to pay POLITE counter staff.

I’m told that there is some sort of law that Congress  enacted, limiting their rate increases to some statistic.  What Congress enacts, it ca revise… and if it can dump billions into banks and auto manufacturers, it can take a few hours to figure out how to keep the venerable post office alive through this 21st century.

Yes, emails and the Internet have cut into the use of the post office, but they have far from replaced it.  Decrease in demand does not necessarily decrease relative income.  This is not complicated.  Only a bureaucrat could fail to understand how to make it functional again.

Some ask if we should save the post office.  From this perspective, we don’t need to bail them out to save the institution.  We simply need to be more flexible in our control of its rates.

The plan to consolidate outlines consolidation in many rural communities.  That’s the LAST place to close, as those are the communities that most need the service and, very frequently, get the least amount of service for their money.  My cabin in S. California does not offer to-the-house delivery.  I have to drive 2.4 miles to the mailbox cluster.  If there’s a package, I have to drive 15 miles to the station to pick it up.  Consolidation would double that… or we could just raise the cost of an envelope by a few cents.

Another area that could stand improvement is that of bulk mailings. They are hard on the environment, spam mailboxes with things that few people need or want, and are provided at such a discounted rate that it’s worthwhile for companies to send that spam (and then charge the customers that much more for having done so.)  Charge the same rate for one such mailing as an envelope.  The wasted workload will decrease as revenues for worthwhile mailings increase, and the amount of trash and cut trees, toxicity from ink and paper mills will all be reduced as well.  In this electronic age, it’s a no-brainer, really.

Some supposedly brilliant minds have been at work on this problem… and cutting jobs and consolidating facilities is the best they could come up with?  Fire them and hire me.  They’d save millions right off the bat!  These methods didn’t take months or years to develop.  A few days of random pondering, and less than 30 minutes to pull them all together.  Surely the best and brightest minds of our nation can do better than that?

You mean the images, the truth about the horrible things we humans do to our fellow men and other living beings?  Because those who perpetrate such atrocities depend upon their dirty deeds being kept secret.

Oh, you mean the Gay thing?  Sexual orientation?

Because I shouldn’t have to. You don’t. Your photos of your family shouts out “I’m straight!” Your “Just let me check with my wife,” announces your sexual orientation. Your proud proclamation that your son or daughter has/is/did whatever, is you not keeping “it” to yourself. And you shouldn’t hide any of these truths of your life — nor should anyone else. At the end of the day, it’s not for you to have an opinion about anyone else’s life but your own.

To those of you who are still in the closet, and those who are but cover it up with “I’m not hiding who I am, I’m just not comfortable with public displays of affection” (PDAs):
The day will come, (and when it does is up to you,) when you are fed up with apologizing for who and what you are, done with hiding, and done with being a dirty secret. I will not put you down if you lack the strength to do so now.

I know of a young man from a religiously conservative family. In the two years he and his last BF were together, he was uncomfortable with even going out to dinner with the older man, afraid that people would notice and guess that they were lovers. Though neither of them are at all effeminate, he was still afraid that someone might have figured out that they were together, in love. The irony is that he worried more about the opinions of a stranger than about hurting the feelings of his lover.   I recently noticed that he has changed his relationship status on Facebook, naming his new BF.   I’m glad for him that he’s free of the debilitating fear.

Closets are for clothes, not people.

Everything everyone does, every decision made, comes either out of Love (of self or another) or fear. Fear itself can be good, when it protects us from harm. But when it become a master, a cage, it is no longer protecting. Then it is harming — both our own sense of self-worth, and those around us.

There is a time for discretion. I don’t think it would be a good idea to start making out at an affair of state, for example. There are times when PDAs are not wise, regardless of orientation. But the reason for that, the decisions and choices, must not be borne out of Fear.

When you are ready, you will shed the fear. Until you do, while you are not okay with who or what you are, it is taking a huge toll on you, though you may not realize it. The closet is a man-eater… and PDAs are not the cause of your discomfort, merely a symptom. Your own self-loathing is the real reason behind the lack of self-confidence. Let me share an observation with you: YOU care about it far more than anyone else does. Those others are busy living out their own lives, he kissing his wife or girlfriend, she gently brushing something off his cheek, just as you should allow yourself to do. They’re too busy living their own lives to worry about who may notice, (or to truly care) what you may do with your own lover. Even someone who makes a comment in passing on the street isn’t going to obsess on it, put himself in a cage over it. They’ll make the snide remark and move on. Meanwhile, you live in a cage of your own making while you allow someone else’s opinion to control how you treat those you care for and love.

Going about my daily life, my choices are governed by my own moral compass. First question is “Will it harm another?” If it does not do actual HARM, then I am okay with it. Within that, though, is another question: Is what *I* am doing inherently harmful, or are they claiming harm frivolously?”  For example, the people who say “Ewww, I don’t want to see that! I don’t care, but why can’t you keep that stuff to yourself,” have harmed themselves by their intolerance, and are now trying to impose that perspective upon people who have every right to do what they are doing.  They could look away, or mind their own business, but there’s no Drama in that.  Even weighing the Public Good, it’s far more important that every individual(s) be able to be themselves, live their lives without hassle, than that someone not be offended about what is none of their business in the first place. As Romanovsky & Phillips sang, “I she freaks out, she’ll recover.” Sane people really don’t care how others are pursuing their happiness.  They’ve got better things to do.

I don’t have a rainbow flag anywhere, least of all on my forehead. But I do have an (equal) Human Rights sticker on my car. I don’t have an “Interested In” designation on my Facebook profile. But I do not hesitate to stand up against homophobic remarks or behaviors. Nobody’s going to observe me casually and immediately conclude “That guy is gay.” But if they have the balls to ask, I’ve got the guts to tell ‘em.  I usually return the question with a question: “Why do you ask,” I query.  “Are you wanting to ask me out?” The reactions are priceless… or at least good for a chuckle.  I do not hesitate to be sincerely affectionate in my contact with someone I care about — no matter if they are relative, friend or lover.  (Would you hesitate to kiss your mother in public?)  Any of those three is far more important to me than what anyone else thinks.

To my brothers and sisters still caring more about the opinions of others than they care for themselves:
I hope the day comes soon, when you allow yourself relief from the weight. It’s a burden you may not even recognize, because you’ve been carrying it for so long. But you’ll definitely know that it’s off your back when you finally shed the unwarranted shame.  Once you do, it really does get better.

To the homophobes and finger-wagging Shamers:
See what you’ve wrought, the unnecessary pain, suffering and deaths you’ve caused through your intolerance? Was it your intent to put such enormous burdens upon others, upon your own children? To make them feel so dirty, so undeserving of love? If your (concept of) God is petty enough to care more about the gender of the person they love than THAT they love, I’m not all that certain of that deity’s divinity in the first place.

Regardless, the matter is between the God and the individual soul, not something for you to judge. Your intolerance has caused tremendous harm and pain — so much so that some, caught in a vulnerable moment, choose to end their lives rather than to suffer any more of it. Gay kids suicide three times as often as straight teens. So keep your condemnations to yourself. It’s not your right to add to their suffering.

As a well-known laundry-airing daytime TV host says, be good to yourselves… and each other.

For several years now, I’ve been explaining that it’s the U.S. oil companies, not “supply and demand,” Foreign Oil, or any other flimsy fiction, causing gas prices to be so high.  Just 4 years ago, (starting 3 months before the last time the nation went to the polls,) petrol plunged at the pumps.  In northern New Mexico, the price of regular unleaded was down below $2.29 a gallon.  Other places in the nation saw gas even lower than that.  I wondered then how the oil baron president, G.W. Bush, managed to get the prices to drop so dramatically, in order to make his GOP party’s candidates look more electable.   Slowly, they’ve been edging up since then.  Senator Bernie Sanders (D, VT) wrote that it was at $5 a gallon in some places this past week.  Here in S.Cal, we’re paying about $4 a gallon… and the simple truth is that it is the same gas we were buying 4 years ago for $2.29, last month for $3.35.

EDIT: As of 3/8/2012, just 3 weeks later, we’re now at $4.25-$4.50 per gallon in S. Cal.

Another examination about four years ago demonstrated that the higher gas prices being blamed on OPEC were only happening here in the States.  In Mexico, the exact same gasoline (even made in the same El Paso refineries) was $1.58 a gallon cheaper.  Excuses were offered, of course, but the bottom line is that, according to the increases in the price of crude oil, Mexico was paying exactly — down to the penny — what they should be for that increase (relative to the increased base cost of the product) while we in the States were being hosed… again.

The bottom line is that it isn’t the oil producing countries which cause the majority of our woes. Pump prices are being manipulated right here at home by our own giant corporations.   Still not convinced?  Think about the way prices go up at the pump on holidays, but drop on Sunday afternoon, before the work week begins again.  The excuse is “Oh, it’s a matter of supply and demand,” and like dumb sheeple, we soldier on, accepting whatever line we’ve been fed.  So long as they give us SOME explanation, we accept the extra rip off, and dig deeper to help them gain tens of BILLIONS in profits a year — AND tax breaks that allow them to pay next to nothing on those profits!  But have you noticed that there’s never actually a gas shortage?   I remember when there was a real gas shortage in the 70′s.  Many stations closed up while they were out of gas, and the ones that still had fuel had lines blocks (and an hour or more) long to fill up.  THAT was a gas shortage.  Holidays are just an excuse to rake in some extra profit because we have plans to drive.  They may as well have said “Oh, it’s Tuesday” as given us that line about Supply and Demand.

Over the years, there have been various petitions to tell the oil companies that we’re not going to take it any more — each of them more laughable than the last.  “Don’t buy gas on November 10th — WE’LL show em!”  Right.  So everybody fills up on November 9th, and they make as much or more as they would have otherwise.  Yeah, that’s really showing ‘em, huh?  A more damaging campaign would have been to not DRIVE that day… but we lack the courage of our convictions.  Few would have actually participated in that protest.

Here in the U.S., there seems to be an unspoken honor amongst the thieves that dig ever deeper into our wallets at the pump.  According to Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Utilities Trading Commission, Wall Street has their hands in the pie as well — up to their elbows!  Chilton calculates that if you drive a car like a Honda Civic, you’re paying $7.30 more than you should every time you fill up.  If you drive a Ford Explorer it’s an extra $10.41.  Got a Ford F150?  Then you’re paying an extra $14.56 per fill-up.  That’s $750 a year — to Wall Street speculators.   Talk a reason to Occupy Wall Street!

Dark Green are OPEC nations.

There is some culpability owed to foreign oil.  Oil-producing nations can band together to fix prices (in part simply by controlling the rate of production — or lack thereof).  And therein lies our solution: Anti-OPEC.  Just as they can set prices on what they will sell for, and how much oil they will produce, we can set prices on how much we’ll buy and how much we’ll pay.  Just as it takes some spine on their part to stick to the price-setting, it takes spine on our part, and solidarity.  We could have the price of crude oil back down to $60 a barrel in no time, if we simply refused to buy it for any more.  WARNING: They might very well refuse to sell at that price, in which case we might actually see a real Supply & Demand situation.  But they won’t do it for long, for the following reasons:

1) They like the money from that black gold, but couldn’t care less about keeping the stuff itself.
2) They were already being made very wealthy at prices far lower than $60 a barrel.
3) If they hold out too much or long, we’ll start finding alternative energy and transportation solutions, and then they’re the ones who are hosed at the pump.

It doesn’t have to stop with OPEC.  In fact, it shouldn’t.  As I’ve explained, OPEC aren’t the only villains.  The prices we’re paying now, supposedly higher because of nervousness about Iran, have nothing to do with OPEC and everything to do with price manipulation.  NERVOUSNESS shouldn’t cost us one red cent.  It doesn’t cost them anything, so why are we paying so much more than we were a month ago?  Oh, that’s right. $10B a year in profits — each!  Come on, people, say it with me: SCREW THAT!

Price setting isn’t a one-way street.  We can also tell THEM how much we’re willing to pay.  In fact, we do it all the time… unwittingly.  The key to Anti-OPEC is in CONSCIOUSLY, INTENTIONALLY telling them what we’ve decided the market will bear.  Can you do that?  Can you forgo that extra trip to the store?  Can you simply drive less when the gas is crazy expensive?  WILL YOU?  Will you take public transportation whenever possible, rather than obeying the habit of just jumping in the car?  Offer to ridepool.  Ask your neighbor if they need anything from the store, help THEM stop feeding the Pump Demon.

Occupy Your Wallets!

We are not powerless.  We DO have a say.  The Occupy movement is very powerful… and it starts with Occupying your wallet!  Then tell Congress you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it any more.  Don’t blame the President.  Unless he has oil holdings like Bush did, he isn’t the one in charge of that.  Congress is.  Tell them to take the futures trading of Wall Street in hand.  Tell them to stop the tax loopholes for mega-corps, especially those in the oil industry.  Make sure they understand that if they don’t do something about it, we’ll replace them with someone who will.

Perhaps the most important thing  you can do: Pass the link to this post along to your friends.  Post it.  Share it.  Shout it from the mountaintops (if you have any where you live)!  Together, we can make a very big difference.

What's Ron Paul REALLY About?

Ron Paul bills himself as a libertarian, and speaks loosely of libertarian philosophies.  He may seem to some like a man who believes in individual liberty, smaller government, and the Constitution.  In truth, that’s simply not the case.  This is a point-by-point refutation which demonstrates that Ron Paul is actually a clever bigot who has no problem with the government telling people what to do with their bodies and lives.

One of Ron Paul’s most famous claims is that just about everything is a State’s Right.  It’s surprising how many people don’t bother to follow that statement out to its logical conclusion.  Dodging admitting to your personal biases and bigotry by calling it a State’s right is clever enough, but the dodge remains disingenuous, because that just means that the State’s legislation will take your rights from you instead of the Federal government doing so.  It does not provide for any liberty.  Moreover, it excuses the Federal government from acting on one of their most important responsibilities, which is to protect the individual from the tyranny of the masses.  Those Constitutional guarantees found in the Bill of Rights are not to be abridged.  Not ever, under any circumstances.  Since it is a Federal Constitution, it most certainly is incumbent upon the Federal government to protect the individual’s civil liberties.  It  most certainly is not within that agency’s prerogatives to require that the individual chase after those guarantees 50 times, once in each state.  According to Ron Paul, though, (and I have this from him directly) that’s exactly  what U.S. citizens would be “free” to do.  Meanwhile, individual citizens are still subject to the whim and will of the majority until they procure those Constitutional guarantees for themselves — once in each state.

Why would a freedom-loving man do such a thing?  Let’s get past his rhetoric and get to the truth.  The man is not comfortable with gay people.

Eric Dondero, former Senior Aide to Ron Paul from 1997 through 2003, reports (see Eric Dondero’s Ron Paul Statement) that Ron Paul slapped a gay supporter’s hand way.  He also refused to use another prominent gay supporter’s bathroom, going so far as to tell Dondero to find some excuse to go to a restaurant, so he could use the bathroom there.  (It apparently hasn’t dawned on Dr. Paul (a physician) that gay people in San Francisco use public bathrooms, nor that he isn’t going to get HIV from shaking hands.)

I also watched a concealed camera comedy episode in which Sasha Baron Cohen (a slapstick comic well-known for  Punk-ing people) acted as though he was coming on to Ron Paul.  Paul was livid, flustered and clearly homophobic in his responses, shouting “He’s queer, he’s crazy! … He took his clothes off!  This interview is over!”

Actually, Cohen didn’t take his clothes off.  He dropped his pants (underwear on,) after making a comment about lighting some candles and having been a dancer.  It was obviously not a sincere come-on, and he didn’t lay a finger on the much older man.  He was actually several feet away.  But Dr. Paul was so busy being homophobic that he couldn’t even recognize the obvious Cohen set-up.  Apparently neither Ron Paul nor his staff did their homework, or they would have known that Cohen is prone to such stunts.

The bigger point, though is that the reaction of Ron Paul in the situation is hardly the character or aptitude of a man suitable for the presidency.  What makes it worse is that, asked about it in an interview, Ron Paul conveniently edited himself, reporting only that he said “this interview is over.”  He knows his bigoted remarks won’t go over well, and tries to conceal that truth about himself.

So we see the real reason why Ron Paul claims it’s a States’ issue .  He doesn’t want to be seen as the homophobic bigot he actually is, so he shuffles these things off, instead of actually standing up for the rights of ALL citizens to live their lives as equals in the eyes of the law.  But his voting record tells a different tale.  He had no problem voting FOR the the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” but now claims that it’s a state’s issue.  Ron Paul also co-sponsored the Marriage Protection Act, which would have barred federal judges from hearing cases pertaining to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.  The man’s voting record is pretty clear.  Ron Paul is no friend to gay people, or anyone else who doesn’t fit into his conception of what is acceptable.  He just doesn’t want to admit it.

You’ll note that he has less of a problem telling others what to do when it comes to his Pro Life platform, though.

For a man who claims to be a proponent of freedom, he would like to tell a woman what she must do with her own body, what pains and responsibilities she must carry.  There’s a LITTLE more room for such things in the status quo, but within the world that Ron Paul says he would like, there would be NO support for a pregnant mother from the government, and yet that same government would demand that she carry an embryo full term, care for that fetus in her own body, bear the sore body, the nutritional requirements, the safety requirements, etc. and then be put through the rigors of either raising a child for the next 18 years, or  the emotional pain and distress of adopting that child and always wondering what happened to him/her.  The final hole in his position is that he would trust the woman to do all of that responsibly, REQUIRE that  she do so, and yet he would not trust her to make up her own mind as to whether or not she’s up to doing so.  All of this, in a world already overrun by 7 BILLION people… because Ron Paul would force his religious beliefs upon us all.   To go all the way into this is a huge topic in and of itself, but suffice it to say that for every happy ending, there are thousands of children raised unwanted, feeling the sting and suffering from the resentment of being unwanted.  That is no way for a child to grow up.  Yes, Dr. Paul, there are quality of life issues far more important than the existence of it… and the choice simply should not be yours to make OR impose upon others.

Ron Paul doesn’t really believe in that States’ Issue line.  He’s smart enough to realize that it would never happen here, and that if it did it would be entirely dysfunctional.  He’s luring voters in on a false notion, with false hopes that he, as president, would be entirely unable to deliver.  But it SOUNDS good to a people who are feeling overwhelmed by complex government.

Initially, the libertarian perspective that Ron Paul claims to offer sounds inviting.  He says he doesn’t want people to pay taxes, wants no overbearing federal government, no war on drugs, no wars abroad.  But in truth, he’s not advocating any of that.  Despite claims to the contrary, Dr. Paul voted to authorize George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.  But it’s not just that he’s playing both sides.  He’s dodging the hard questions by pushing it all to the States, who will allow THEIR majority rule to impose the very same things on everyone.

Is state rule even an actual majority?  Likely, not.  The ones to make the rules will be those who have the time to invest in lobbying (at a state level), and those politicians who have squeezed their way into office.  There, at a state level, the EXACT same thing will happen that is already objectionable now — except without the benefit of the federal government stepping in when the States are out of line or get heavy-handed.  What then?

Under Ron Paul’s “States’ Issue” philosophy, if you don’t like the way a state’s laws are, you can TRY to change them.  Or you can move, and HOPE to find a state where the laws are more favorable to the way you want to live.  That may prove slow and costly, if it’s possible at all — especially if you own your home.  Now let’s see how it works in practice.  In practice, let’s say you want to stop slavery, because you see it to be morally wrong to own a person.  You may be able to do so there in Illinois.  But in Georgia, they don’t want to stop slavery.  So in Georgia, if you’re black, you’re chattel.  How does that happen?  Because that’s the way the state wrote their rules!  Think it can’t happen that way?  Think again.  There are copious volumes of laws at a state, county or local level which are blatantly unconstitutional… and still being enforced every day.  If you think the US Supreme Court is overrun with cases now, just imagine if the States could legislate away rights all they want.

Then there’s the whole Evolution thing.

Ron Paul has gone on record as not believing in the theory of Evolution.  How this man was able to become a physician and still impose his religious beliefs on science is beyond me.  Had he acknowledged that his Creator could use Evolution as a means of creation, that might have made a bit of sense.  But to claim that Evolution is invalid in the face of evolution itself happening all around us?  The man is simply too inflexible in his beliefs to acknowledge the proof that’s right before his eyes… and that makes him a dangerous choice.

Thoughts from another Ron.

Ron Paul, Racist?

Not so certain on this one… but it isn’t looking good.  His newsletters came out with decidedly racist comments, and they were written in the voice of someone claiming to be him, in the same small town where he lives.  But now Ron Paul is denying that he wrote them, and says he doesn’t know who did.  And that bothers me.  We’ve already seen him to conveniently edit out his homophobic slurs, so we know he’s prone to doing so.  More importantly, though, if he can’t manage to control his own newsletters and what is put out in them, is this really the man we want running our country?  I can hear it now: I don’t know who did that, but it wasn’t me!  Yeah, right, Dr. Paul.

My Personal Take

So far, it’s been the facts.  Now I’d like to editorialize a moment.  A flat tax is a good idea.  The rich paying the same PERCENTAGE of tax is only fair.  But no taxes at all, that’s simply not reality.  As President Obama said in last night’s State of the Union address, the government should  be there to provide that which the government can do better than private industry.  What sorts of things?  Roads, for starters.  Libertarian roads would be a nightmare.  I’ve seen what that looks like in Africa.  No thank you.   Lots of other things.  Water delivery and sewerage systems, for example.  Do you REALLY want a lack of standards on that?  (But of course that wouldn’t actually happen.  The states would put their own in place, as they do now.  But there wouldn’t be any oversight, any Clean Water Act to keep a greedy industrial state from dumping toxic and lethal waste and byproducts into the water table, the rivers, the oceans, no Clean Air Act to keep the skies cleaner…

These are only points, though. The overall point is that we are now a nation of 312 MILLION people, on a planet of 7 BILLION people.  We’re no longer 13 colonies with a population in the thousands.  It’s simply a complicated matter to have that many people living together  and have them do so harmoniously.  Ron Paul wants to make it seem like it would be so simple… but once you get to the point of allowing the Tyranny of the Masses, it wouldn’t be simple any more.  Not at  all.

Reciprocity won’t address the issues either.  If you’re free to grow and smoke your own MJ in your house or yard, that doesn’t mean the next county over won’t decide it is illegal, and arrest you for the smoke on your clothing.  Think it can’t happen?  In New Orleans, you can go into a drive-through and get a quart of margarita, alcohol and all.  You can sip or chug away while driving.  But the very next parish (county) over is Dry, no alcohol sold or allowed.  They don’t want all that amoral, lawless, godless partying going on in THEIR back yards, no sir-ee, Bob!

To conclude:

In short, Ron Paul’s lying to you.  He’s promising what he can’t deliver, and sidestepping the very real issues that affect millions of Americans every day, by summoning up the imaginary notion of it being a States’ Issue.  There are definitely plenty of problems in this country, things we need to fix and change.  But those changes won’t come by waving Ron Paul’s magic “States’ Issue” wand.  They’ll come from a lot of hard work and coming together for our common goals, as we have done throughout the history of this nation.  There’s ample room for freedom in the system as it is now — far more than if you had to fight for your civil rights 50 times instead of once.  Don’t drink the Ron Paul Kool-Aid.

I was in a Kroger store for the first time in several months, enjoying the familiarity and quality of their private label brands (after months of tolerating Stater Brothers’ mediocrity.)  Picking up my favorites brought me to the frozen food section, where I found the Private Label German Chocolate Cake ice cream.  The carton was scarfed up mindlessly and deftly added to the cart.  It wasn’t until the next aisle that I realized what I’d done.  I’m getting a bit ahead of the tale, though.   Allow me to go back a bit.

Years ago, I was involved with a non-evangelical vegetarian.  (That’s the kind that makes the choice for himself, so he doesn’t feel the need to preach or convert anyone.)  During one of our discussions, I was presented with a notion that defied the food triangle of my youth.  According to Tony, we don’t actually need to eat meat to be healthy.  I’d never thought about it much one way or the other, so I had to take a bit of time to do so before responding.

“But you’ve got to have protein, ” I insisted, and Tony calmly explained that it’s available through plenty of other non-meat sources.  It made it a bit easier to grasp because he’s an ovo-lacto vegetarian (which is to say he eats eggs and dairy products, but nothing that’s got a face or ever had a pulse.)

“Well, alright, then, but…” and at each objection, he calmly and confidently explained why I was mistaken.  I suppose it was about 1o or 15 minutes of that before I came to The Irrefutable Argument.

“If we don’t have to eat meat to survive and be healthy, then the only reason to do so is so we can enjoy a certain taste in our mouths for a few seconds?”  He nodded, silently agreeing, allowing me a few moments to let the wheels spin.  It was in those moments that I came to the realization that a few seconds of a taste sensation simply was not a good enough reason to end a being’s life.  And that’s how I came to be a vegetarian.

Jump ahead some years to yesterday, to a discussion I’d been having with Synthian Sharp, (of Exit Ophelia, and “How I Became An Elephant,”) about my distain for preachy vegans.  Somehow that led into it not being okay to cause suffering indirectly either, to talking about how dairy products cause the milk cow to endure a life of misery, cause the disgusting meat practice of turning that dairy cow’s offspring into veal, of how even the most free-range of chickens still ends up laid out at 4 years of age and thrown in a fryer very prematurely, and how literally millions of male hatchlings were cruelly and brutally destroyed because of their gender.  I was defensive, pointed out that I was already doing plenty — a lot more than any meat eater.  “And besides, I justified, you drive cars that run over animals, use fuel that pollutes the planet, harming all earthlings…  It’s not like you’re not doing things that cause misery too.”

That found the limit to Synthian’s patience.  “OOOOHHHH HOLY FUCK… NO YOU DIDN’T!!! You’ve got to be kidding me. – Really??? the Tu-Quouque??? From you?”

Point by point, he proceeded to lay waste to my defense of eating eggs and dairy:  ” If you’re not ready to state very clearly and loudly already, the very DRAMATICALLY reduced carbon footprint in veganism as compared to vegetarianism, then you’re just unaware. – That’s not an insult. Its a fact. – and you either want to learn it, or you don’t. – If you (sic a vegetarian) still support grain-fed factory farming… your carbon footprint as a whole is on average 18 times that of a vegan. That’s just the way it is.

“Fun facts from a side conversation elsewhere: Organic is good. But isn’t a global killer.  It doesn’t get to be a first priority, because if everyone goes Organic, the world still dies. You cannot feed an American level of meat animals and still have a planet. It’s just math. 11,000 a day die of starvation. You feed 5 times what it takes to solve world hunger to American meat animals. It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat. And 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. At the same time it takes the same fossil fuel to produce 1 hamburger patty that it takes to drive an SUV 20 miles, and meat animals are a larger contributor to greenhouse gasses than all of the cars in the world combined.  That’s before we even start in on deforestation, hormones, disease, ldl cholesterol, and ocean depletion… Organics save the individual.  Not the world.”  And there had me, dead to rights.  But I wasn’t quite ready yet, still needed time to stew on what he’d presented.

The conversation died off, and we started up on something else the next day, the previous day’s intense discussion seemingly forgotten.  Which was earlier today, actually.  And that all led me to be pushing my cart down through the frozen food section when I suddenly realized that my beloved German Chocolate Cake ice cream was also a dairy product, just like the milk I’d elected not to put in my cart this time.  It wasn’t until I was putting the ice cream back that I realized I had already decided to eat vegan.

People say it’s about a choice.   It’s not.  Repeat: It most certainly is not about choices.  It’s about making a decision.  Whether it’s quitting smoking, taking a trip to Europe, moving to Africa, becoming vegetarian, or moving on to eating vegan, it’s always about the decision to act.  As Harry Chapin said, “When in doubt, DO something.”

You can do it — whatever it is.  The reasons, excuses, protests and procrastinations all fade away, once you’ve made the decision to act.  May all of you find that you’ve made unwitting decisions, for all the right reasons.

Post-script regarding veganism: It’s not a matter of choice.  We have no choice — not if we want to survive.  And if we insist on marching forth childishly, insisting upon taking what we want simply because we want it, we’ll take the rest of the planet down with us.  Yes, it is just that serious.

FOR FURTHER READING:
Think we can’t get what we need from plants, or that it will be complicated and difficult?  Check out The Emperor’s New Protein: A Whole-Foods, Plant-Based Reality Check 

Here’s info about what we do and don’t need in our diet, and what foods provide it: http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/protein.html (similar to the link above)

This link dispels the myth that eating flesh is natural to us: http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

What about the planet?  How does it matter?  7 BILLION people on earth now, and more every day.  Check THESE facts out!

RELIGION: What about the Bible?  What do scriptures say?  The BIBLE is pretty clear, actually, about that we’re not supposed to eat other living beings.
And the Qur’an?  No, the Qur’an doesn’t get that specific about not eating meat.  But think about this: In the holy city of Mecca, it is forbidden to kill ANYTHING… and Muslims are instructed to say “Bismillah” before killing (which means “by permission from God”, because all beings belong to their Creator, and we do not have permission to kill them other than as instructed within Al Qur’an.

Finally, I strongly encourage you to watch Earthlings for free, online, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.  For a more medical/scientific approach, be sure to check out Forks Over Knives.

The planet CANNOT sustain 7 billion people if we keep on insisting on eating meat.  Moreover, we don’t need to eat the flesh of another living being.  What remains is that we choose to, that we WANT to.  I want to do a lot of things, but am mature enough to refrain from doing so because it isn’t right.  I WANT to go and grab up the money at Walmart.  I could live for the rest of my life on what they have in their safe in one day!  But I won’t… and not just because I’d likely get caught.  I won’t because it’s not okay for me to steal another’s life/livelihood to improve my own coffers.  So what makes it okay to steal another being’s life if you don’t have to?  It’s not.  Do the right thing.  Walk the talk.  It really DOES make a big difference — in the world and in how you feel about yourself as well.

ADDENDUM:

Below is the complete listing, to date, of Synthian Sharp’s rants on the subject.  Advanced cerebral capability recommended:
4 BASIC ANSWERS ABOUT YOUR WORLD AND VEGANISM: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=111754272179515
YOU VS. THE LION (Bound To Action By Your Own Awareness): http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/51972009
ONE DAY OF POO (The Animal Waste Diagram):http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=193049887383286
THE VEGAN HOT DOG CHART:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=127527383935537
THERE ARE NO CATS IN AMERICA (The First Two Things To Do When You Veganize):http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/495930133
VEGANISM & SEX (My Tao Of The Veg):http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/59450207
I DON’T HAVE A VITAMIN DEFICIENCY. YOU HAVE AN EDUCATION DEFICIENCY:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=143711018983840
THE WORLD OF GREEN SMOOTHIES:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=120047078016901
THE 100TH MONKEY: http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/409710005
ORGANICS AND CRAZY PEOPLE:http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/341967804
WHY EATING HYDROGEN MAKES YOU FAT:http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/499495107
SWINE FLU (The Factory Farm Incubation Rant):http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/486190731
STUPID VEGANS: http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/409715965
CLEANSE (Whole Foods):http://www.myspace.com/exitophelia/blog/242053939

RECIPES:
A DEFINITIVE SOURCE FOR VEGAN RECIPES: http://vegweb.com/
VEGAN JALAPENO MAC & CHEESE:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=178886422132966
SPICY VEGAN CHICKEN KALE:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=115624795125796

MOVIES:
EARTHLINGS (the movie):http://www.earthlings.com/
SKIN TRADE, the definitive documentary on leather & fur (Yes, I worked on it, but its @Shannon Keith’s film): http://www.skintradethemovie.com/

When I phoned back, they said they would “escalate” the ticket, and call me back in another 72 hours. Meanwhile, I’m informed that a similar complaint was made in Sept. 2010, and the result was that there was “no budget” to fix the towers so they would provide the service advertised on the map. (Right, multi-billion dollar company, but no budget to provide what you advertise.) That was over a year ago, and they STILL haven’t modified the map to accurately reflect their coverage area, though they KNOW it doesn’t service my cabin in 3G.

Today they called back, the 2nd 72 hour notification revealing that the Engineer supposedly checked out the tower but everything is working fine. OBVIOUSLY NOT.  I’m still getting 2G connections! But regardless, once again, they won’t be doing anything about it. They’re pleased to inform me that I’m within my 14 day “Buyer’s Remorse” period, so they’ll take it back without a penalty or Early Termination fee. How bloody civil of them. But there is no “Buyer’s Remorse” going on.  I haven’t changed my mind about their phone, nor the services promised.

Quite simply, they’re STILL lying about their coverage area, and when they get caught, after wasting several hours of my time, all they offer is to take the phone back and wash their hands of it? T-Mobile knew– over a year ago — that they do not have 3G service here. Indeed, there is not 3G coverage until 4 miles from here! Though it’s an easy thing to do, and though they were informed well over a year ago, T-mobile has declined to change the map.  They’re continuing to sign people up based on their claim of 3G coverage that isn’t true,  and offering nothing by way of compensation (or even apology) when they get caught in the lie.

I’ve turned them in to the FCC and FTC, but expect little or nothing will be done about it.   Generally speaking, such agencies are already in their back pockets, or such nonfeasance wouldn’t happen in the first place.

If I try stealing from them and just give their stuff back when I get caught, is that okay for me, as like it is for them?