Mom's Miracle Moisturizer

As I sat in the living room of Mom's house, the doorbell rang for the third time since that morning. The first two rings had been by delivery drivers for UPS or FEDEX, and as I got up from my comfortable spot on the sofa to answer the door once more, Mom came around the corner of the hallway. "I'll get it," she said.

As usual, when the door was opened there was no one there, just a package, sitting on the doorstep like an abandoned baby. These were Mom's babies, wrapped bundles of impulse shopping joy, containing items ordered by phone from the pages of the catalogs that fill her mailbox on a daily basis. What was it this time? Another flower patterned "Summer dress" that was designed to make older women look slim, but when tried on, did the opposite? Another clock in the shape of an elf (or a dwarf or gnome or something)? Or was it another piece of jewelery, such as the recent arrival of the "genuine diamond" bracelet and ring on sale for $24.95?

I wondered what it was this time, but Mom didn't hang around long enough for me to see what was hidden inside the box. Instead she held the bundle tightly in her arms and retreated quickly and quietly to her room.

The next morning Mom had her package back out where everyone could see it. She was getting ready to send it back, as she does with 90% of the things she orders. My curiosity compelled to me to investigate. There were three smaller boxes inside the larger one. Each little box contained a jar of cream, but the contents of one was missing.

"Where's the other jar?" I asked.

"In my room," Mom replied. "It didn't work like it was supposed to so I'm sending it back."

There was a booklet among the jars, and I took it out to read it.

"Mom, it says here it takes 60 days to see any results."

"If I keep it they're going to start charging me $65.00 a month beginning in April," Mom said.

"But you've already opened the box and used some of it," I reminded her.

"I'll just tell them it doesn't work."

"They're going to tell you it takes 60 days to work."

Mom thought for a few moments, then got on the phone. I heard her from out in the living room "explaining" to the customer service person.

"I know it's a good wrinkle cream," she was telling them, "but I don't think it's going to work on me because I had to have some dental work done recently and I had my mouth open for a really long time at the dentist and now I've got deep wrinkles around my mouth that weren't there before. Those kind of wrinkles can't be helped by a cream."

After Mom got off the phone I saw her going through the mail and separating the newly arrived catalogs from the rest of the mail. She then gathered the stack of catalogs and went back to her room. From down the hallway I could hear the sound of pages being flipped long into the night.

The Cosmic Rays Did It?

Did cosmic rays have anything to do with the Toyota accelerator problem?

The phenomenon can trigger software crashes that come and go without a trace. Unlike interference from radio waves, there's no way to physically block particles; such errors typically have to be prevented by a combination of software and hardware design.

Cosmic rays offered as acceleration cause

Inglorious bunker-busters: US ships arms to attack Iran?

The U.S. is shipping bunker-busting bombs capable of striking Iranian nuclear facilities to the Indian Ocean according to newspaper reports. It's claimed they're heading for British-controlled Diego Garcia, an island used by the U.S. as a base for attacks on Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

Bomb, Bomb Iran?

Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

Final destination Iran?

Good For You, Karl!

Karl Winn, 60, said he would rather 'recruit ex-drug dealers, convicts and child molesters' than employ former servicemen or women.

His comments came after he was contacted by Forces Recruitment Services and asked if he would consider taking on ex-soldiers at his net design company Webeurope.

"Anybody who has been in the pay of such a military force, and by their silence and complicity has condoned such illegal and immoral actions while accepting a monthly bloodstained pay-packet , certainly won't be considered for employment by us."

"The reality for the families of their victims is that there will never be any justice, and there never will be any closure, for the loss of a son, a husband, a child, or a family member who has fallen victim to British Military personnel who are going beyond 'just doing their job'".

Company boss compares British troops to child molesters

You Have a Right to Life, As Long As You Remain a Fetus

The "pro-life" movement is sick and hypocritical to its very rotten core. Many if not the vast majority of those who label themselves "pro-life" are the same people who cheered George Bush's (and now Obama's) wars of aggression. They have no compassion for the tens of thousands of civilians (including uncounted numbers of children) the U.S. Military and its "heroes" have killed (hey, just a little unavoidable collateral damage in the war on our terrorist enemies, right?).

Since they have no problem with their tax dollars killing innocents as long as those innocents have already been born (to object to having your taxes used by our heroes in military uniform for the killing of civilians who have been born makes you a traitor, of course), but they DO have a problem with their taxes ending the life of a fetus, the solution is obvious, the Predator Stork:



The cartoon is from mattbors.com via Check Your Premises.

The Tea and Strong Drink Party

The Tea Party movement has spread to our British cousins.

On February 28, an extraordinary meeting took place in a crowded room in Brighton on the south coast of England. The tea party movement, scoffed at by much of the British establishment, quietly arrived in the UK.

...

This was a British event, so the tea was consumed and not tossed anywhere. There was a cash bar as well for those wishing to have something a bit stronger — another British tradition.

...

American observers found the fact that a tea party event in the UK was being planned both ironic and amusing. However, the problems discussed were as serious as the ones with which American tea party attendees are concerned: high taxes, bloated government, and fiscal irresponsibility.

Reaction to the Inaugural British Tea Party Event

h/t The Whited Sepulchre

We're Doomed and Washington Can't Do Anything About It

The Current Corrupt System Keeps Us All Down

The state continually puts obstacles in the way of people earning their way out of poverty, or just earning an honest living, which is why what we have in North America is not even close to any kind of real "free market", in spite of the propaganda from both left and right.

I was watching John Stossel the other night on Fox Business Channel and the show was about government insanity (well, all his shows are about that) in the area of licensing laws. He had a couple of women florists on, because in Louisiana you have to pass a complicated test to be allowed to become a florist and make and sell flower arrangements.



Not only the state and its taxpayer parasites are to blame, however, as established businesses, corporations and professionals are in bed with government to keep out competition, as is so clearly the case with the licensed florists in Louisiana. Which is why it's not always the case that the successful in business owe it all to their providing the best product or service at the best price to the consumer.

I was over at The Commentator's blog and he too is having his own problems with bureaucrats in trying to start a business.

The fact is, the current corrupt system keeps us all down, and forced into wage slavery or the taking of government handouts (when they're available) most of the time. Apologists for the statist capitalist (as opposed to truly free market capitalist) system say I can quit my job whenever I want, it's voluntary. Yeah, right! I can quit and starve and die on the street! It's all a lie, and an evil one.

The freedom to make a living is a basic human right, and I, for example, should be able to start a taxi business with my car and a cell phone, if I so desire. Of course, if I dared defy my government masters in such a manner, I would be breaking the law, and would be shortly put out of business, and those criminals guilty of taking the bread out of my mouth would be vindicated in court by the Judges of the corrupt "justice" system, for they are judges in name only; in reality they are nothing more than black-robed tyrants.

Eventually, we must stop the state, for unless we do, it will kill off everything right and good.

Star Trek: The Next Degeneration 2

Though there may be some Star Wars/Star Trek confusion, perhaps when all those gigantic yellow letters sent into space by a "galaxy far, far away" finally arrive here the truth of the statement "I knew Star Trek was better than Star Wars" will become obvious, and clear up any remaining confusion.

In the meantime, I'm still reading Spock, Messiah! which doesn't mean I'm a slow reader (though I'm not necessarily a fast one) but only that I'm reading about ten or twelve books at once, which is my usual practice. I'm not sure what my next Star Trek novel will be after I finish with Messiah, but I've got my eye on one I saw at Barnes and Nobel called Troublesome Minds, which looks as if it has Spock again succumbing to the influence of another powerful mind.


via Dunner's

After watching that, I don't think a micro-sized Enterprise could have saved the day.