It's Only Fair!

This is something I believe in and I hope you will take a moment to read it all the way through.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each person who reads this to forward it to as many people as you can.  Post it to your status on social networks.  Tweet it.  Email it.  Just get it out there.

Legislative Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits:

12 years maximum, pick any one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No tickee, no laundry:

Legislators collect a salary while in office and receive no pay when they are not. If they are one of those slackers who rarely bother to show up for votes, or are never actually present in their office, they don't get paid.  Hell, put a time clock in and see how many hours they actually work and pay them by the hour.  There aren't any other jobs in America where you get paid for not doing your job and you get a full retirement without contributing to it or doing the time.  Why should our elected officials be any different?

3. Social Security:
 

Just as with every other government employee, and American worker, for that matter, legislators participate and contribute to the Social Security system. 

4.   Retirement:

Legislators purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.  They can buy into the regular government employee's retirement system, but abide by all the same rules, regulations and limitations as all other government employees do.

5.   Pay:

Legislators will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  They get the same percentage of increase as all other government workers.  If it's good enough for our military and every other government employee, it's good enough for them.  Most of them are millionaires when they enter office anyway, voting themselves huge annual pay raises is just unconscionable.

6. Health care:

Legislators lose their current health care system and have the option to participate in (and pay for) the same health care system as all other government employees.

7.  Laws:

Legislators must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people without exception.  I know they're already supposed to do this, but they don't.  Additionally, if they are convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, they go to real penitentiaries with real prisoners, not country clubs.

Serving as a legislator is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home.

If each person passed this message to twenty people, almost every citizen of the United States would receive it within 3 days. What good would it do?  I don't know, but we need to take control of our destinies.  Somewhere along the way, our legislators have lost all grips on reality.

It's Only Fair!

This is something I believe in and I hope you will take a moment to read it all the way through.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each person who reads this to forward it to as many people as you can.  Post it to your status on social networks.  Tweet it.  Email it.  Just get it out there.

Legislative Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits:

12 years maximum, pick any one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No tickee, no laundry:

Legislators collect a salary while in office and receive no pay when they are not. If they are one of those slackers who rarely bother to show up for votes, or are never actually present in their office, they don't get paid.  Hell, put a time clock in and see how many hours they actually work and pay them by the hour.  There aren't any other jobs in America where you get paid for not doing your job and you get a full retirement without contributing to it or doing the time.  Why should our elected officials be any different?

3. Social Security:
 
Just as with every other government employee, and American worker, for that matter, legislators participate and contribute to the Social Security system. 

4.   Retirement:

Legislators purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.  They can buy into the regular government employee's retirement system, but abide by all the same rules, regulations and limitations as all other government employees do.

5.   Pay:

Legislators will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  They get the same percentage of increase as all other government workers.  If it's good enough for our military and every other government employee, it's good enough for them.  Most of them are millionaires when they enter office anyway, voting themselves huge annual pay raises is just unconscionable.

6. Health care:

Legislators lose their current health care system and have the option to participate in (and pay for) the same health care system as all other government employees.

7.  Laws:

Legislators must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people without exception.  I know they're already supposed to do this, but they don't.  Additionally, if they are convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, they go to real penitentiaries with real prisoners, not country clubs.

Serving as a legislator is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home.

If each person passed this message to twenty people, almost every citizen of the United States would receive it within 3 days. What good would it do?  I don't know, but we need to take control of our destinies.  Somewhere along the way, our legislators have lost all grips on reality.

Nasty Bastards Piss Me Off!

So, the topic of the day* is people who don't wash their hands after they use the public restroom (after using a private restroom either, I'd assume...I mean, after all, if you're not embarrassed by not washing them in public you certainly aren't going to be motivated to do so in private).

These people are otherwise known as Nasty Bastards.  

I first really started thinking about Nasty Bastards when I took a 13 night cruise about seven or eight years ago.   One of the medical officers told us that they average 2 deaths per day on that itinerary.  There was an ambulance (or at one memorable port a pick-up truck) at every port of call waiting to cart away the days' deceased.  The medical offices were chock full of passengers suffering from norovirus, flu, colds and other easily preventable communicable diseases.

So anyway, we're on this long cruise and my companions and I began to notice a very disturbing pattern: most of the people we encountered in the restrooms completely bypassed the sinks on their way out.  I'm not talking about the ran-their-hands-through-running-water-for-a-nanosecond-they're-clean-enough Nasty Bastard. I mean the held-their-head-high, walked-past-the- sinks-and-returned-to-the-formal-dining-room Nasty Bastard.

A recent scientific study  showed that there is a direct link between the germs found in cruise ship restrooms and outbreaks of norovirus.  It doesn't take a mathemagician to figure it out: you put 1500-3500 Nasty Bastards in a floating petri dish and add tropical heat, 24-hour buffets and shared elevator buttons and you've got a nice norovirus stew cooking.  Oh, and lest you think that using the little paper seat cover is going to save you, think about this: the toilet seat was found to be the cleanest item in all of the restrooms tested.  So take heart, Aunt Hazel, it would be really rare to catch a virus through your ass cheeks**.

Well, my friend (I'll call her "Hanna" to sort-of protect her identity) and I came up with a brilliant way to let these people know how we felt about them putting our health in jeopardy by not washing their hands.  It's pretty ingenious and is a great way to let everyone else on the ship know who the Nasty Bastards are as well:

Every cruise ship has a wandering band of annoying people they call "photographers" who take snapshots of you at every opportunity during the cruise. They post these photos in a huge gallery, where the passengers wander through, find their photos and, hopefully, buy them for exorbitant prices.  We decided to get a Sharpie marker, find photos of the Nasty Bastards we saw bypassing the sinks and write "Nasty Bastard doesn't wash his/her hands" across it.  We really thought this was a grand idea and thought everyone would appreciate it as a public service.  Luckily we sobered up before we found a Sharpie marker, but we still got a kick out of imagining it. 

Okay, so I really don't have a solution for this problem, I just wanted to bitch about it.  I'm doing my part though to prevent the spread of germs.  Full body condoms are just so difficult to walk in, so for my own protection, I make a conscious effort whenever I'm in a public place, be it restaurant, cruise ship or airplane, never to touch my face, eyes or nose and to wash my hands at every sink I pass.  Knock on wood, as much as I travel I've never caught norovirus or even a cold, so it is either working for me or I'm too damned mean to grow a virus.

I do make a plea to everyone though, please wash your hands, with soap and water or sanitizing gel for at least 30 seconds after visiting the restroom.  And when you leave the rest room, use the paper towel (or your sleeve) to open the door...remember whose Nasty Bastard hands last touched that door knob!

*This is a companion post to one my friend Scott Airitam (ruler of the Airitam Nation) put in his blog recently.  It's not that I'm not original enough to come up with a completely new topic, but I had a bit to say about this because it's something that has bugged me for a long time.  Plus, I'm not as nice as Scott, and I didn't want to fill up his blog comments with profanity.  After all, that's why I have my own blog! 

**Aunt Hazel, the only way you could catch something from a toilet seat is if your butt cheeks had an open sore on them. Or if you were to touch your genitalia, nose, eyes or mouth with your hands after touching the seat. Or if you actually touched a germ-infested seat with your genitalia, nose, eyes or mouth, in which case Nasty Bastard doesn't even begin to adequately describe you.

POD People Piss Me Off

Several days ago I noticed 6 missed calls on my cell phone.  All received within a very few minutes and all had left (blank) messages on my voicemail.  I didn't pay much attention to it, I had other things to worry about.

Then yesterday, I got up at 7 in the morning and my cell showed 12 missed calls and 12 new messages, all from the same 1-800 number.

I know not to call the number until I find out what it is (I made that mistake once), so I Googled the number.  Come to find out it's from PODS.  You know, the folks that bring a little storage container to you, you fill it with your stuff, then they move it or store it for you.  Come to find out, I'm not the first person in whose Post Toasties they have pissed.

We happen to have one in our driveway as I speak (we're moving).

So I call the number to find out what the deal is.  The customer "service" person who answered wanted to know my PIN. 

Me:  "I don't know, why do you ask?"   

POD Person:  Because I can't tell you why we're calling without your PIN. 

Me:  "Well, I don't know.  All I do know is that I don't want my voicemail filled with blank 30-second spaces.  How do I make it stop?"   

POD Person:  You'll have to sign on to your computer, log into your account and find out." 

Me:  "What exactly is it that you need?  We have a POD, we've paid for it, it's a perfectly good POD, in fact, it's practically POD perfection.  What is the problem?"   

POD Person:  It says here that no one was home when we delivered it and you never signed the contract.  

 Me:  "Well, that's not accurate, we were home, I had to move my car for them and my husband signed the contract."   

POD Person:  Well, not according to our records, you'll have to sign into your account to take care of this. 

Me:  "Okay, fine, whatever, just tell me, how do I make the phone calls stop?"

POD Person:  You'll have to sign into your account using your PIN.....

Me:  (sound of strangulation rapidly followed by the sound of disconnection)

Note to all businesses:  If you have one of those systems that automatically dials your customers over and over and over again (which, in itself should be illegal), set it to hang up after a few rings.  There is nothing worse than having your voicemail box filled with blank messages.  Okay, I'm sure I could come up with a bunch of worse things, but it is pretty damned annoying.  Here's a really new concept that's even better: hire real people to make your phone calls.  Call once.  Leave one message.  The end.