To Further Beat Texting To Death

OK, tell me to stop anytime. In my ongoing obsession with texting, I ran across this.

So California already had a law that preventing people to hold a cell phone in their hand right? Apparently the Governor of the Left Coast just signed a new law specifically dealing with texting.

"The new law may seem a bit redundant to one that took effect in July that banned holding a cell phone while driving. Using headsets and the like is still OK, of course...The initial law proscribed holding that cell phone up to your ear in order to make or take a call. It didn't block setting the phone on the passenger's seat or on the dashboard and pecking away while you drive" via

Those silly texters will now have to start using some kind of voice recognition software so all they have to do is talk into their Bluetooth headset and compose their text message.

OR they could just make a call.

Don't miss a thing, subscribe to The Big Bald Blog. And now you can even follow me on Twitter

 

We Are Suing OPEC?

This just released from Reuters. Wait till you feast your eyes on this.

By Tom Doggett

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

"This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities," said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans "are at the mercy" of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

The White House opposes the bill, saying that targeting OPEC investment in the United States as a source for damage awards "would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners."

The administration said less oil going to refineries would limit available gasoline supplies and raise fuel prices.

Foreign investment in U.S. oil infrastructure has declined in the last decade. But the state-owned oil companies of several OPEC nations are owners of U.S. refineries, and those investments could be affected if the legislation becomes law, said Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp.

The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to carryout a study on the effects of prior oil company mergers on energy prices.

The Senate would still have to approve the House measure.

The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law."

What is going on here? How can we win from such an action?

Holy cow, you think the prices of oil are high now, wait till they decide they don't like us enough to sell us oil. AND with foreign ownership of US refineries and oil fields this could get ugly. Foreign ownership of any land or interest in the US should be banned. There are NOT a lot of countries that would let me, as a US Citizen, own land in their country. Why can't we just drill for oil in Alaska.

What do you think on the subject?

 

U.S. Post Office Customer Service

Here I go again with another rant that you probably won't care about. It's about our fabulous Postal System. If you are a fan the U.S. Post Office or don't like really long posts, you might want to stop reading now.

Here's a little background. For years I have lived in a town where the mailboxes are out at the curb. The type where the hard working mail person doesn't have to leave her vehicle to deliver the mail. On more occasions than I can count, I have come home after it has been raining and a package is sitting on the post, completely soaked. I have complained about this and I usually get the standard response, "your mailbox needs to be of sufficient size to accommodate your mail." I'm not going to go into this side issue but sometimes I would need a 55 gallon drum to "accommodate my mail."

I have also had to put up with the mail being delivered anywhere from 11 AM to 5 PM. I believe my mail person fancies a good garage sale. Usually the mail arrives closer to 5 PM when there are a bunch of garage sales in the neighborhood. I always know when there is a substitute delivery person. My packages are sitting at my back door and the mail comes before noon. This is another thing that I have complained about with no resolution. You need to understand something before I go on. I am not one of those chronic complainers. I usually can put up with a lot before something gets mentioned.

Anyway, back the situation that thrust this rant onto The Big Bald Blog. My mailbox got hit last week and broke the post off. I propped it up with 2 steel posts until I could get around to fixing it. It seems that the post was leaning a little too much, and my mail person, being the pleasant person she is, notified me in a very nasty handwritten note that I had to fix the post or run the risk of my mail being held. It seems that she had lean a little bit and reach a few inches further to actually get the mail in the box. Apparently this was too much work.

The problem is, I share the post with 3 other mail boxes on the opposite side of the street. I wanted to find out if I could move my mailbox to my side of the road. The others that share the post with me also wanted to have their own post by their house.

On Sunday, I knew I would have some free time. I could run to the local Home Depot and grab the supplies needed for the repair. I begin my investigation on the proper height and placement of a mailbox. Of course I started my research with the U.S. Post Office's website. You would think that the information would be readily available on the their site. After about 20 minutes of searching, do you think that I could find anything on the subject? There were several blogs that had information about it, but the information was for another state. The U.S. Post Office's website indicated that I would need to check with my local post office for the regulations.

I called Sunday, assuming they would NOT be open, hoping that they would have some information available via recorded message. Nope - It just said leave a message and listed their retail hours. Oh Yes, I forgot about their retail hours. I must digress here. Normally the term retail hours conjures up a notion of extended hours to accommodate shoppers. Not the U.S. Postal Service. 9 to 11 and 12 to 5. The USPS has retail hours that are inaccessible to those who actually work for a living.

OK, back to the picture I am trying to paint. I leave a message and decide that I truly have no hope of anyone calling me back, so I decide to go down to the post office. I get down there and fill the postal worker in on my story. The person behind the counter says, "You will need to call regional office to get that information." I thought he was kidding me. I asked, "Can't you just give me the information?" After all he was the "local" post office. He writes the number down on a Post-It and sends me on my way. I get to the office, look at the number on the official government document (the Post-It) and have no choice but to give the number a call.

A very unpleasant person answers, "Post Office"

Me- "I have a question about the regulations on mail boxes."

Post Office - "What do you need" - Yes he actually said "What do you need."

Me - "My mailbox was hit and I need to replace it, can you give me the proper dimensions for the height?"

Post Office - "The bottom of the box has to be exactly 42 inches from the street and it can not protrude into the street."

Me - "Exactly 42 inches?" (I may have to hire a survey crew to ensure proper height)

Post office - "YES!"

Me - "OK, next question"

Post Office - sighs

Me - "I would like to move my...."

Post Office - (interrupts) "You can't move your mail box!"

Me - "Why"

Post Office - "That's just the way it is and it's been there for years, what else do you need?"

Me - "Uhhh nothing I guess. Thanks for your.....(click)"

At this point I want to call his manager's manager and lay into someone. But then I figure, what good will it do. After years of experiencing a "don't care, don't help" attitude from this great division of our Government, I figured it would be an exercise in futility.

Years ago I was in the back room of the main post office and there was a banner hanging on the wall. It said something to the effect, "UPS claims that the USPS would never be able to survive in a truly free and competitive environment. Let's prove them wrong!"

Wow, I couldn't agree more. Since we have no choice on who delivers our mail, we have to put up with poor attitudes and poor customer service. This, of course, is why I will choose FedEx or UPS any day of the week over the USPS when I am going to ship something significant. I WOULD like to see the U.S. Postal service try and compete with the other carriers in a true competitive situation. If business owners provided the same terrible customer service and ran their business like the USPS, they wouldn't be in business long.

Well, that's about all I needed to say. If you read this far without bailing, I am curious to see what your opinions are? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Microsoft's Vista Doesn't Play Well With Others

Apparently there is an issue with Microsoft's new OS. It does not allow you to search with anything other than their own search tool. Google, having a similar tool, began complaining about this feature last year.

According to Google spokesman, Ricardo Reyes as reported on seattlepi.com, "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index."

Some prosecutors believe that this violates the Microsoft anti-trust decision 5 years ago. The crew at Google obviously agrees.

Microsoft spokesman was quoted saying, "Although we don't believe we're obliged to make these changes under the consent decree, we certainly are willing to make an effort to address these issues and make additional changes to Vista."

I may be ignorant and not know the entire story behind Microsoft and the anti-trust settlements, but part of me says, just leave Microsoft alone. If you want to build a business that eventually transforms into a huge empire and have a product that everyone wants, I say fine. But what do I know. Your thoughts?