I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

How do you folks handle robocalls?  I had a few during our last election here, and if it was from a party I loathed, I always hung up immediately.

But I've just read a comment on a blog which seems to give even better advice:  Lay the phone down and go off and do something else.  The Party gets charged for the call and it ties up that line for as long as you leave the phone off the hook!

And when I get solicitations from political parties or charities that I do not respect, I open the envelope and stuff the mailing envelope and material in the postage-paid reply envelope and send it back.  If the charity is smart and money-conscious, it will take me off the mailing list.

As for the "big debate" tonight -- I have a problem watching Romney, he gives me the creeps.  He seems so uncomfortable and stiff, like a person at a cocktail party who really doesn't want to be there with all the ordinary people who are enjoying their drinks and conversation.  JMHO, of course! 

Athena - best of luck to you in whatever you choose.  You know your body best and only you can make the decsion about what you must do.  Big hugs, though.  I know you've got to be nervous.

Alexandria - I don't know if I could make it or not, but it sure would be cool to meet all you ladies!

Chickadee, I laughed so loudly at your TeePee Tent Revival list that I scared the cats off the credenza!  Welcome home -- I so admire you for pitching in and helping people!

((((Athena)))) -- here's hoping you get some good advice from your doctor and you can find a way to ameliorate your menopausal symptoms without compromising your BC status. 

Linda, I usually just hang up.  If it is an illegal robocall, like selling something, if I am in a fractious mood I push "1" or whatever number and get a live person on the line and spend some time screaming at them. Nice release.  Or I just tell them I've notified the FCC.  Most of the time I just hang up, get the callback number and report them anyway.  I like the idea of just putting down the phone and walking away from a political robocall to charge them for the time.  I have been getting Romney calls and I CANNOT understand why -- I am registered Democrat in the most liberal county in Virginia!  The joke here is that if you're a registered Republican, you pay more in property taxes (not true, but makes everyone laugh).  I do the same thing that you do with the mail solicitations ... I learned that from my neighbor who registered as a Republican just so he could get the mail and send it back.  He removes his name, though, so they keep sending him stuff.  Guerrilla warfare!

I won't watch the debate tonight.  It is on past my bedtime and I wouldn't be able to sleep afterwards anyway.  I'll either catch the rerun on C-Span or read the transcript in the paper tomorrow.  That way I can put it down and walk away to calm down before I take it up again.  Besides, I dislike Romney nearly as much as I did W, and I could never stand to watch him speak.

Looking forward to reading everyone's take, though!

L

I saw that too blue ... LOL.  But true believers are going to be fooled by the antichrist.  So if you aren't fooled he must not be it ... or something like that.     

The phone calls have increased here because politics is exempt from the do not call list.  Mostly I use my caller ID and don't answer.  But some are so persistent that I finally break down and answer to get rid of them.  I even answered a political poll re our Senate race yesterday.

Haven't decided if I'll watch the debates or not.  They are pretty staged IMO.  Curious if Romney is really going to try to survive with only 'zingers'.  He has a history of so many   'position' changes I can see where picking one set and defending them is going to be difficult for him.  And yes ... he creeps me out too ... fake and plastic.  And paint Ryan's face red and he resembles a cartoon devil   Maybe he's the one???           

Hi Everyone!

Been sweeping and raking acorns.  Had to get them off the driveway, as I've slipped and fallen on them before.

Alexandria ... Thank you for your lovely offer.  We might want to coordinate with Linda as she may be hosting the get together next summer in NOTL.  All of us from the U.S. that went stayed in the same hotel and shared rooms.  We spent time at a winery and the falls.  It was really fun.

Your home sounds lovely.  I've hosted a weekend get together before for 20 people. It was a blast.  We went sightseeing one day and talked and visited another day.  Tim did all the bbqing.  I only have one guest room, so many stayed in a local hotel and some stayed in their RV's.

hugs,

Bren

Remember when the red menace was our biggest fear......commies behind every bush. Duck and cover school drills....... We asked our teacher to explain the damage the bomb would do since we were only about ten miles from the White House. He admitted hiding under a school desk wouldn't help.



So now that the commies are impotent we have to raise the socialism menace as the great fear. It occurs to me that perhaps if Nixon hadn't given away the store with a trade agreement with China maybe we wouldn't be without thousands of good jobs that went with it. Ross Perot was right about that giant sucking sound but it had already happened........manufacturing to China.



If more citizens are dependent on the benefits from the government, a certain party has only to look at its own policy of giving away our work so a few could get filthy rich on child labor and cheap wages.



Permit me one more memory.......mid 80's......working for Ma Bell.......our data technology center experiences the police escorting them to clean out their desks as the whole department is to be shut down........in exchange for H1B visa 's that bring in eager low wage workers from India who will do the same work for near nothing. All of a sudden learning computers at college is a guarantee of nothing and the corporate world cries for more H1B visa's because they say there aren't enough qualified American workers. I call BS.

People believe what they need to believe, what they want to believe and what they are told to believe.  But rarely do they look for the facts to support what they believe.

 people believe myths that fit their world view - the world view that is being pushed by conservatives is that anyone who is in the 47% Romney made reference to is on welfare (and has dark skin).  The truth is that the 47% includes seniors who get social security for which they paid all their lives.  It includes veterans who receive well deserved veterans benefits.  It includes college students who need a student loan so that they can get an education to be able to compete and contribute to our society.  It includes single moms who need some help - usually for a short period of time while their children are young.  It includes people who have lost their jobs in the recession and haven't yet been able to find work or at least not work that pays enough to live on.

Yes, there are people who attempt to cheat the system, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the system, it means we should fix it so there are better ways to stop the dishonest from stealing from it.

Yep, GG -- if people want to get a REAL look at the 47% (if they are fortunate enough to not be among the 47%), I recommend they read "Nickled and Dimed:  On NOT Getting by in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich. 

L

People go on and on about people on welfare with Iphones. no they are POS refurbished phones from the program started by Bush that look like Iphones. The one that makes me grind my teeth is when they complain that someone on welfare has nice hair and nails. I know a lot of people whose friends do their hair and nails and you can get some darn nice press on nails for under $5. These same people want people on Food Stamps to get a job (a lot of them have 2 or more already) while they look like crap.It makes no sense and just show how out of touch people are who think the only place you can get nice hair and nails is at an expensive salon.

Grumpy Rosemary-who just had 2 precancerous moles that she thought were nothing removed

Rosemary -- right on!  Appearances can indeed be deceiving.

I did see the last half of "Half the Sky", which brought me to tears.  Reminded me how very, very fortunate I was to be born in the land of freedom and opportunity (and universal healthcare).  That would be Canada, BTW.

If one more person says that we Canadians don't have any right to opine on the U.S. election, I'm going to shout out "Then don't call your President the leader of the free world". 

(Rant over) 

The angry, fearful extremists keep hitting new lows.....

From the Daily Beast, re: Tucker Carlson and the 2007 Obama clip:

"All that Carlson did is clip it to get an "angry black man" in the minds of Americans. It's at once one of the most desperate and lame and vile plays of the race card I can remember - an obvious recognition that the 47 percent tape can only really be countered emotionally with race-baiting. But it lit up "conservative" media in ways that Conor best expresses:

If the New York Times was constantly searching for archival  footage to prove that Mitt Romney doesn't like black people, or that he  is "whipping up race hatred," the conservative media would accuse them  of frivolously ignoring the actual issues that this election ought to  turn on. It would say that they were exploiting the racial anxieties of  Americans to tarnish the character of a man whose long record of public  policy-making shows no evidence of racial animosity or radicalism.

When it comes to racial demagoguery, the right has become everything it says it hates about the left.

Carlson used to be a brilliant writer. He's now a racist demagogue. He's a story in one person of how degenerate and disgusting much of American "conservatism" has become."

Full story:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/the-decline-and-fall-of-tucker-carlson.html