Vote of No Confidence: John McCain

John McCain is my Senator. Mine in the sense that he was elected by my state of Arizona.

He was great in his prime,

but now it is his time

to RETIRE!

The other day Senator McCain proved that he is getting too old to be in public office. He started showing signs of Alzheimers when he said that the Bush administration deceived the American people about the war in Iraq. McCain claims that the Bush administration made it sound like the war would be a "day at the beach".

I distinctly recall speaches by President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld where they talked about the long hard road ahead. I wasn't deceived. I can see that people easily swayed by the media would have been deceived. The media portrayed the war effort as a day at the beach until they realized it wasn't.

Instead of bashing a man who has given his life to honorably serving the United States, I'd just like to write a letter to him:

Dear Senator McCain,

John, please don't run for President. Please retire to a nice home in some ritzy neighborhood in Phoenix. Get a summer home in Montana, and please enjoy the last days of your mortal sojourn. You deserve it. Don't let the stress of being president send you to an early demise. Don't give in to your lustful desires for power. I'll take you golfing instead and you are guaranteed to defeat me. I'll give you lots of sunscreen too and nice broad-brimmed hat. I'm just worried that your conservative priniciples will be completely eroded if you have to submit yourself to one more lobbiest or campaign contributor. Retire while you still have a somewhat positive reputation. Throw your support by someone young, dashing, prinicpled and ambitious like Mitt Romney. That is the best legacy you could leave us.


Sincerely,

Your humble constituency

A moment of silence for Pluto

I don't know why this story fascinates me so much, but Pluto is no longer an official "normal" planet. It is circumference-ly and orbitally challenged "dwarf" planet. There are other dwarf planets that are larger than Pluto. Dwarf planets will be relegated to that inferior cosmic status comparable to the asteroid belt.

Just thinking about the financial implications that this decision has is interesting. All of the text books, solar sytem mobiles, etc have to be replaced now. Can the public schools afford it? Maybe I should get into the solar system paraphernalia business right away. I could have all these things made in China really cheap!

Multi-Level Marketing & Mormons

Unfortunately, Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which I am), including a lot of my friends and family, are involved with several multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes (pyramid schemes are now illegal, but they still exist in forms that slip through the legal loop holes). Mormons by nature are too trusting and gullible, yet they love the idea of getting rich quick.

Every time we’re invited to have dinner with another Mormon family I have this slight fear that my family has been invited over to have dinner with another Mormon family that the seemingly innocent dinner will turn into a presentation for Amway, health juices, skin products, water purification system, you name it! In my college days, I responded to an ad in the university newspaper about jobs that needed my Spanish speaking skills. It turned out to be a false front for recruiting me into one of these types of schemes. I let that really tick me off. My bitterness about these types of businesses is born of the on-going blatant deception that so often accompanies them. The art of deceiving others must be taught at their big conferences and seminars, 'cause dang!, they are good at it!

Any time someone has to pay money to become an employee just seems fundamentally flawed. I especially love it when they say "If you pay more money...you'll start out as a district manager!" These companies generate their money by recruiting more employees and getting the new recruit's money. Each person in the chain above them gets a certain percentage of the money. They do this instead of making money by selling a good or service. All the companies sell products, but the products are just a masquerade for a money-making scheme. There is something to be said about earning one's bread by the sweat of one's brow, literally and figuratively. Getting people's money without providing a good or service is, to me, immoral and unethical. At the conventions for these products, there are usually a few token testimonials about how wonderful the product is, but the purpose of the seminars are often focused on how to recruit others and get their money. They have very motivating speakers and there is a lot of "rah-rah-rah" going on that gets everyone pumped up. Everyone comes away with an emotional high and with high ambitions of recruiting more employees.

Truly good products will most likely be mass-merchandized through traditional retail stores, not by straining relationships with friends and family. That said, there are certain products that appear to have better marketability through friend to friend contact. There are good multi-level marketing companies that truly focus on making money by selling their product. My wife is involved with many of these dealing with scrap-booking, candles, and modest clothing lines (all of which I deem a conspiracy against Mormon women and their husband’s bank accounts). New recruits for these companies do not pay money to become an employee, nor do they have to buy the product in bulk to sell. Orders are taken by the employee and sent to the company. People up the chain do make money by their own recruit’s ability to sell the product. Some not-so-good companies force buyers into long-term contracts to purchase a certain minimum amount of product a month, whether you can make use of it or not. I don't like that.

Mormons seem to be perfect candidates for these types of companies. They have large families and a built-in network of relationships through church associations from which to recruit. Mormons also believe in sharing their witness of the gospel with others one family at a time, so the concept of marketing this way is natural.

Now, back to the products…my dear sweet grandmother is into all these oils and sprays that cure all kinds of ailments, marketing by the same types of companies. I don’t believe that the products in and of themselves have intrinsic healing properties, but they do work because she “believes” they help her. The placebo-affect is real and documented and the power of faith in God or in “things” has a more powerful affect on the mind and body than most are willing to admit. If the products that these companies sell are so wonderful and the companies motives are altruistic, why are they not willing to market them to the masses in the full light of day and spread the blessings to more people instead of secretly, darkly and deceptively pushing them on the ignorant and gullible?!

That is my opinion. I just had to get it off my chest.

Shopping Cart Courtesy

When I was a little boy, I loved to tag-along with my mom on trips to the grocery store. After we loaded the groceries into the car it was my job to take the cart back into the store and push it into the designated location. I always felt a sense of pride in fulfilling that duty.

A few years later, grocery stores made it more convenient for the customers by placing cart-return locations in various locations in the parking lots. Wow! The stores really wanted to make things nice for us.

Over the last few years I have noticed that customers are too lazy to even push the cart over to the returns, usually within ten parking spaces distance. They just leave them next to their car or push them to the curb, or pile them up with all the other lazy customers in an empty parking spot. It's Ridiculous!

Grocery stores aren't able or willing to keep the parking lots cart-free. Sure, they could staff the parking lot with twenty illegal aliens who will be there the second your groceries are securly placed in the back for your minivan, but the price of your Capitan Crunch just went up 50 cents!

I call upon all grocery store owners everywhere to remove their cart returns and let's go back to the customer duty of returning your cart to the inside of the store. I'd like to ask the American Heart Association to support this, just like they encourage us to take the 34 flights of stairs at work instead of the elevator.

Unfortunately, this lack of shopping cart courtesy is a symptom of a worse illness.

I call upon all people everywhere to simply care about other people!

Solving the Problem of World Poverty

I just found this John Stossel report from last May that supports my earlier blog entry. I say let religions and private charity organizations handle the money and food transportation. There may be some corruption there too, but a lot less than having it pass through the hands of governments. Our government's focus on world poverty should be on working with other governments to create an economic system in which people can prosper.