Potential Scams

My 94 year old Aunt has great vision. She had cataract surgery a while back and doesn't even need glasses any more. She says she can see as good, or better now, than she did when she was a lot younger. It was time for her get her driver's license renewed, but she had trouble seeing the horizontal line. The driver's license office took her money, but told her she would have to go see a particular eye doctor before they would renew her license. It was not the doctor who did her cataract surgery and she did not like that, but she went.

They proceeded to do a whole bunch of tests. She said they were doing all kinds of things to her and taking pictures and she wasn't sure what they were up to. But she eventually got tired of being examined and told them she didn't want them taking any more pictures of her eyes. They told her she needed to buy some glasses. She told them she didn't believe it because she can see the roads signs perfectly. And if it was true, she would prefer to get them from the doctor who did her cataract surgery.

They gave her a piece of paper to show the Driver's License office she had been there. When she went back to the DL office, they gave her a drivers license without make her buy any glasses, and didn't even have to look in the machine again. This seems rather strange. Meanwhile~

I have been getting a message on my phone saying that I need more storage to back up my telephone. I do not care to back up my telephone, and did not believe that I needed more storage, but I did not know how to get the message to stop and it was pestering me so often I went to the ATT store and asked how to turn it off. I was told that I would have to turn off ICloud or purchase more storage from ITunes for $.99 per month. So I signed up for more storage.

The next day I got another message saying I needed to buy storage. So I upgraded to $2.99 per month. I now have 199 GBs of unused storage and I am still getting those annoying messages telling me that I need more storage. So I went back to the ATT store and told them what was happening, and they turned off ICloud, which means the storage I have purchased is irrelevant.

I told ATT I would like to cancel my storage service and stop paying for irrelevant unusable storage service from ITunes. They said I would have to contact Apple. When I contacted Apple, I got a message saying that my telephone does not qualify for support and I will have to pay $29 to discuss the issue with them.

I am extremely upset, disgusted, and annoyed that I gave my credit card number to ITunes and purchased storage that I did not want or need, and will never use, in order to make the message to stop, and it did not stop. I am not a person who normally buys into conspiracy stories. But sometimes the unfolding of events lends itself as support to conspiracy theories. And this appears to be a corporate scam to trick stupid people into paying a monthly fee for something they do not need or want by pestering them with a multitude of unwanted messages telling them they need storage, when they do not. I believe a class action law suit could be filed if the situation is not resolved in a timely manner.

So I am sending ATT a letter to that effect and requesting that they terminate my monthly service with ITunes, refund the money I have spent on it, and consider the letter an invoice. I am billing them $100 per hour for the time I have spent rendering administrative assistance to help them correct their mistake corrected. They may never pay, but I will have their attention when they get my certified letter.

The Government is Unsustainable

Letter to Governor Abbot

To:
Greg Abbot
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428

CC:
Stephen C. McCraw, Director
David G. Baker & Robert J. Bodisch, Deputy Directors
Texas Department of Public Safety
PO Box 4087
Austin, TX, 78773-0001

Dear Governor Abbot:

The day before yesterday I went online to change the address on my driver’s license and got a message saying that I needed to update my browser first. That surprised me because I always update my software just as soon as I am informed that a software update is available. None the less, I checked for a new software update. Just as I thought, I already had the latest version and no software update was available. So I went back to the DPS website and tried again to change my address, to no avail. I continued getting the same message telling me I need to update my browser.

Day two of attempting to update the address on my driver’s license, I got in my car and drove to the driver’s license office on North Lamar. It was closed. There was a sign on the door saying the office would re-open in ten days, and everybody should go to a temporary office until then. I got back in my car, drove to the temporary office, went in, and explained that I needed to change the address on my driver’s license. She told me to do it online. I explained that I couldn’t. She said they cannot change addresses at the temporary office, and I would have to go elsewhere. I got back in my car and drove to Cedar Park. They said they could not change the address for me unless I waited in line and had my picture made again, even though my license is not expired nor due to expire any time soon. My hair was a mess. I did not wish to wait in that long line for an undetermined amount of time, have my picture made again, and buy a whole new drivers license, and battle the rush hour traffic to get home, when all I needed was to update the address. So I gave up for the day and went home.

On day three of attempting to change the address on my driver’s license, I got up early in the morning, styled my hair, and battled the morning rush hour traffic in hopes of beating the crowd so I wouldn’t have to wait in line for so long. When I arrived they told me the system was down. I ran an errand, came back, waited in line, had my picture made, and got a new driver’s license. It took me three days to change the address on my driver’s license. This is beyond ridiculous. It is obnoxious and disgusting.

As much money as the government takes from people for licenses, taxes, registrations, and traffic fines, it ought to be able to hire a good webmaster to keep it’s website in working order. And they ought to be able to simply change your address if you go in person, instead of making you wait in line and have your picture taken. How are people going to find the time to work and pay taxes if it takes three days of dealing with inefficient government bureaucracy to change the address on their driver’s license? Is that why the state of texas has resorted to policing for profits instead of protections via high way robbery? If the government can’t do any better, it needs to shut down.

I still remember how shocked and dismayed I was at how long it took me to get my first driver’s license 40 years ago. And it has just gotten worse. This is unacceptable. It is beyond unacceptable. It is ridiculous, rude, inconsiderate and obnoxious. If it takes any longer than five minutes to wait in line and renew your driver’s license, the government has no business requiring people to buy one. It is amazing to me that we the people have put up with this for so long. And I have had enough. This needs to be fixed.

If the information I found online is correct, the department of public safety has a director and two deputy directors. All of them are men. If those three men cannot get the department running more efficiently, I suggest you fire them all and hire a woman. And I think they should give back some of the money they have already been getting paid if they would like to keep their jobs and try. The department is unsustainable as it is. It has to be changed. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Gayle L. Michaels

Letter for People to Copy and Send

To Whom it May Concern:

The amount of time people have to spend waiting in line to get a driver's license is rude, inconsiderate, inappropriate and unacceptable. As much money as the government is taking from people for licenses, registrations, taxes, fees, and fines, it should be able to operate efficiently. If not, we the people have no business trusting them with our money. If it takes longer than five minutes to renew a drivers license, the government should not be requiring people to buy one. The first time I got a drivers license 40 years ago there were long lines and the wait was atrocious. It has just gotten worse. It is amazing to me that the people have put up with this for so long. I have had enough. How are we supposed to find time to work and pay our taxes with all of the rigamarole government bureaucracies require us to go through in order to remain in compliance? It is beyond ridiculous. It is unacceptable.

I am also tired of seeing cops parked all up and down the highways like hornets waiting to sting people. I saw them all over town today when I was trying to comply. Policing for profit instead of for protection is an unethical opportunistic practice. That policy needs to be changed too. It is time for the government to stop it’s highway robbery. The rest of this letter has to do with government in general. It is not about the Texas Department of Public Safety. My experience with them today is just what tipped the scale and motivated me to take some long over due action.

The government is all about encouraging people to recycle. It loves making people feel guilty because they are using up the earth’s resources. But the military industrial complex is creating more pollution by making war than all of the people on this planet are creating together. How dare the government try to control individual behavior in the name of sustainability? What the government is doing is the most unsustainable activity of all. We the people are not responsible for contaminating the water supply with Flouride. The government creates agencies like FDA to work with companies like Monsanto, which is contaminating the food we eat with poison and mutating our fruits and vegetables into strangeness that doesn’t even taste right. Watermelons leave a nasty after taste on your tongue that is reminiscent of a dead goat. Tomato skins can barely be cut because the DNA has been spliced with spider web genes or worse. An organic apple costs $2.50. One that has been sprayed with a shiny substance that gives people a sick headache costs $.50. How are people supposed to trust the government to protect them when it is subsidizing big businesses that could care less about the health and well being of anyone and all it is interested in is making money? How can people respect a government that is making laws at the request of corporations that want to force people into buying food that is unhealthy for them. Why is the government restricting access to healthier and more efficient alternatives? Power running amuck and bull dozing the populace is insanity. It must stop. It is unsustainable.

The United States is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. But we have a larger percentage of our population in jail than any other country. What kind of a sick pull the wool practical joke is this to make money? And what percentage of the people in jail have even harmed anyone? The government is convicting people for non-violent crimes. How dare they? This country is supposed to be a Constitutional Republic that guarantees freedom and individual liberty. What has happened to Due Process of Law? Habeas Corpus? Miranda? According to our constitution, without a victim, there is no crime. And the jails are crowded with people who have done no harm to anyone. How dare government opportunistically exploit laws that were crafted and intended to protect people in order to make money? How dare it feed on a supposedly free society, and grow itself until it has mutated into a cancerous parasite? How dare it use restrictions and regulations as an alternative form of taxation?

Taxpayers are straining to make ends meet. They are over worked and under paid. There are so many obstacles and regulations and fines and taxes and fees that hard working people who need a day off can’t even rest and rejuvenate. They have to spend their free time struggling to give more of their hard earned money to an inefficient greedy government in attempt to be in compliance and avoid getting convicted. It is a pitiful state of affairs when the people in jail, who shouldn’t even be in jail, have time to play a game of cards, and those on the outside have to spend their free time in the futile pursuit of running around like hamsters on wheels attempting to give the government money in order to avoid getting arrested, when the government isn’t even responsible enough to wisely spend the money it is robbing from people, and hire a good webmaster to keep it’s website running properly. If this continues there will eventually be more people in jail than out of it. And those on the inside will have a higher quality of life than those on the outside. The government is unsustainable. And it has to change.

How dare any government make laws forcing people to vaccinate children with medicines that cause deafness and autism in order to put them in public schools, and prohibit medicinal herbs that have been used traditionally to heal people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years? How dare the government plan and build communities that look like mini-prisons, and herd-drive them into living like swarms and droves of hives completely away from nature where they cannot possibly thrive because it is unnatural? What is the point of all this? To work everybody to death and then dispose of them? I am disgusted with what is going on. This is unsustainable. And it needs to change.

Sincerely, Concerned Citizens

Places to send:

POTUS 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington, DC 20530

US Department of Human Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20530-0001

Greg Abbot Office of the Governor P.O. Box 12428 Austin, Texas 78711-2428

Ken Paxton Office of the Attorney General PO Box 12548 Austin, TX 78711-2548

Attention Steven C. MCCraw Director Texas Department of Public Safety PO Box 4087 Austin, TX, 78773-0001

The Funeral

I was called for jury duty, but much to my disappointment, I did not get picked. In fact, I was the first one they let go. Not sure why the defendant did not want me to serve. But I think he made a mistake by letting me go. He was a hispanic man who looked like he had been in a few fights. But he was also very intelligent and dressed professionally. He asked the potential jurors if any of them owned a gun or had a concealed gun permit. Had he known how pro-guns I am, he probably would have wanted me on that jury. But I was dismissed. As much as I wanted to serve, the universe rewarded me with an emotional release. Now I know what you are all thinking, but I did not ball like a baby when the judge told me I was dismissed. The emotional release occurred because of a funeral procession that I encountered on my way home. I immediately pulled over and stopped when I saw the police escort coming in my direction followed by many vehicles with their lights on. Behind the police drove a team of Harley Davidson’s, all proudly waving the Old Gory and Lone Star Flag. They were big ones. The sight of it caused the hair on my head to stand up and tingles of energy to flow down my arms and back. I am even getting a little bit of a rush writing about it now. Following the Harley Davidsons were many many cars. It may have been the longest funeral procession I have ever seen. I teared up, put my hand out the window, and began to wave as soon as I saw the American Flags. Some of them saw me and waved back. Several cars pulled over and stopped when I did, but most just slowed down and went on their way. As I saw there waving with a lump in my throat listening to The Message, a nice Japanese man with law abiding intentions pulled up next to me and said something. But I couldn’t hear him because of the road noise and radio. So I got out of my car, stuck my head in his, and asked him what was up. He wanted to know if he was supposed to stop. He didn’t understand our culture. Some people were going and some were stopping. He didn’t want to get a ticket. I told him that you are supposed to stop when you see a funeral, but some people don’t. By then the cars driving by no longer had their lights on, so I told him it was okay to keep going and got back in my car.

As I proceeded down the highway, sadness suddenly overwhelmed me. Just as I began blubbering like a baby another team of Harleys with headlights appeared in the road heading my direction. It seemed unusual that they were lagging so far behind. A couple of more miles further down the road I encountered a motorcycle wreck. The driver was sitting up on the side of the road surrounded by EMS and Firemen. He seemed to be okay. But the entire north bound lane was blocked with fire trucks and EMS vehicles.There was a long line of cars waiting for the road to clear. Something told me that lagging tail en entourage of hogs must have been delayed became they stopped to help a fellow biker. But that is just conjecture, or the manifestation of an over active mind and a waste of time if you are hold emptiness supreme. Oh no not I.

I then began to ponder why the funeral procession had made such a major impact on me. My mind immediately went to the American Flags and the men waving them. They were Bikers. Hawg drivers. Patriots. Hells Angels. Outlaws. And I was inspired one more time to try to get my point across about Political Action Committees. Because I believe we could have gotten marijuana legalized long before the juries started nullifying the law in Colorado, if people understood PACS the way I do.

Does anybody reading this blog play poker? Do you mind having to ante up in order to get in the game? Do you consider it bribery? Or the price of admission?

PACs are how “We the People” ante up to get in the game so our issues can be heard and respected equally to everybody else who has an agenda, namely the business community. If we refuse to use PACs, jury nullification is the only option we have to keep the fascists from swallowing us whole, until they get so fat they will pop if they swallow any more. And there is a concentrated effort on the part of the judges, who are working for big businessmen, because that is who is getting them elected, to prevent jurors from knowing they have a duty to nullify laws that should not be on the books. So it is a very slow long slow miserable process of turning things around by using the judicial branch of government, as we have seen with 100 years of marijuana prohibition. But eventually people had enough. And finally now the people of 23 states have regained access to the medicine God put on this planet to elevate human consciousness, cure cancer, depression and many other debilitating diseases.

It is only because we the people, who are free to study the rules, and learn how to play the game, and beat them at their own game, have refused to do so, that this nation has devolved into a state of fascist slavery. Those who understand the process and participate in governance, view themselves as shepherds in charge of a flock that simply has no interest in assuming responsibility for self governance, or is incapable of doing so.