CommenTerry

So You Want to Use Your Cell Phone While Driving?

If you want to talk on your cell phone while driving your car, that’s fine with me – as long as you can do it without causing an accident. I don’t believe in having the government make paternalistic laws designed to prevent you from doing so. However, if you do have an accident while talking on your cell phone – and it is found to be your fault – you should have to pay dearly.

When you are at fault in an accident that occurs while you are talking on your cell phone, it should be automatically presumed that this extracurricular activity caused the accident. As result, you should be forced to pay triple the normal fine for that particular kind of accident and your insurance company should be forced to pay triple the amount of any damage you cause to someone else and/or their property. In addition, your insurance company should have the option of refusing to pay for any of your own medical bills you incur in the accident and/or any damage it caused to your own property.

So, if you want to talk on your cell phone while driving, you better know what you are doing and you better be darn careful!

For Fred Thompson: It Will Be Three-and-Out

In less than two months from now, Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign will be history. A campaign that started out so promising will be caput. Although he’s currently showing some decent poll numbers nationally and in South Carolina, his fortunes in the leadoff states of Iowa and New Hampshire look dreadful right now and will ultimately prove to be his undoing. He’s not in the top three in Iowa and he’s out of the top four in New Hampshire.

If these numbers hold up (and they probably will), his campaign will be in a tailspin by the time the South Carolina Primary rolls around on January 19th. Most of the South Carolinians who are now saying they will support him will turn to someone who has a better chance of capturing the nomination. After a third disaster in a row, he will drop of out the race. To borrow a football term, it will be three-and-out for Thompson.

The Unfairness of the BCS Is Now Showing

The University of Hawaii is the only undefeated team in major college football with only weekend left in the regular season. So why are eleven one-loss and two-teams currently ranked ahead of them in the BCS standings? If the Rainbow Warriors defeat the Washington Huskies in their final regular season game, by all rights they should play for the BCS championship in January. Unfortunately, even if they do win that game, they’ll probably have to settle for one of the lesser BCS bowl games as a reward for having the best record in the country (and that’s assuming they maintain their position in the BCS top twelve this weekend).

Of course, the reality is that Missouri and West Virginia, two teams with one loss each, will be playing for the title if they both win their final games. If one of them loses, that team will likely be replaced in the championship game by Ohio State, another one-loss team. However, if they both lose, Kansas, the only other one-loss team among the elite of college football, will curiously be passed over in favor of a two-loss team like Georgia or Oklahoma. If a two-loss team does indeed play for the title, I’ll personally boycott that game.

The BCS has no business jumping one-loss teams over undefeated teams or two-loss teams over one-loss teams. Instead, it should consider strength of schedule to fill the role of a tiebreaker among teams with identical records. For example, if the season ends with three undefeated teams, the BCS should select which two get to play for the championship. If there are exactly two undefeated teams, then the BCS wouldn’t have anything to decide – those two teams would automatically play for the title. If there is one undefeated team and a bunch of one-loss teams, the former would automatically get a bid to the championship game and the BCS would select their opponent among the latter. And so on and so forth. 

Some would argue that this record-based pecking order of selecting teams for the BCS championship would discourage them from scheduling tough non-conference opponents. Not so. Since no school would ever know when they would finish with the same record as others, they would still need to maintain their strength of schedule, as that would be the main factor considered by the BCS in breaking ties.  While some regular seasons in college football end with exactly two undefeated teams, or even three, there is usually no more than one – with a horde of one-loss teams.

Children's Rights?

When did children acquire so many rights? They've always (or at least should have) had the right to not be taken advantage of or abused. However, they now seem to have the right to this and the right to that. Many of them act as if no one has ever told them that the world is not their playground.

When I was growing up, it was made abundantly clear to me that I didn't have any rights beyond the one I listed above. It was also pointed out to me that I owned nothing and that I was to keep my hands (and feet) off of everything until given permission from an adult to do otherwise.

Classic Rants and Raves #26

A church should be judged by the quality, not the quantity, of its members.   

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It's funny how most books and articles that give us "easy" step-by-step instructions for accomplishing this or that always contain at least one step that I'm either unable or unwilling to take.   

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I find it quite interesting how people will come up with all sorts of convoluted explanations to defend things that are indefensible or to attempt to make sense of ideas that defy logic.

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An asterisk next to a statement in a printed advertisement indicates that such statement doesn't really mean what it apparently says.

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Here's something I've always wondered about: When someone wins a write-in political campaign, how could they prevent someone else with the same name from also claiming victory? That is, assuming the other person is also a registered voter with the same jurisdiction. Keep in mind that a name written on a ballot during a write-in campaign, unlike those of the registered candidates, has no identifying numbers associated with it.    

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Reading the Bible for yourself is the only way to learn what it actually says, not what some preacher says it says.

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The next best thing to getting what you want is not getting what you don't want.

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Isn't it interesting how many things that used to be controversial are not controversial anymore and many things that used to be routinely accepted are quite controversial today?

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Some companies will stand behind their products -- to hide from their disgruntled customers!

Should We Also Glorify Defecation?

I don't understand the concept of building museums dedicated to war or otherwise glorifying it. Unlike pacifists and peaceniks, I understand and accept the fact that wars are often necessary. However, defecation is also necessary, but I haven't noticed any museums dedicated to it. War deserves no more than glorification does it.

A Service Not Rendered

It's no wonder the postal service encourages people to collect and save stamps. When someone buys a stamp and does not use it to mail anything, they have, in effect, paid for a service that will never be rendered. The postal office is paid for a service it will never have to perform. Like they say, that's great work if you can get it!

College Football Is Incomplete Without a Playoff

College football is great game. The individual rivalries are unmatched anywhere else. Its pageantry is superb. However, all of this is overcome by the fact that a major college team can be eliminated from national championship consideration by a early season loss. To surpass the popularity of the NFL,  Division 1-A college football must adopt a playoff system.

Thanksgiving Day 2007

I started this last year so I will now continue the “tradition.” Here are the things I’m most thankful for on Thanksgiving Day 2007:

1) My family.

2) My home.

3) A great job, a great boss, and great co-workers.

4) My church and its wonderful members.

5) Not having to worry about where my next meal will be coming from.

6) The fact that my recent surgery for colon cancer was performed before the disease got into more than one lymph node or spread elsewhere in my body.

7) The fact that my first chemotherapy treatment wasn’t so bad.

8) Good health insurance to prevent a medical bump-in-the-round from turning into a financial disaster.

9) An income that consistently exceeds my expenses.

10) Savings (both taxable and retirement).

11) Freedom to express my thoughts as I wish.

12) The exciting presidential election cycle that will begin in 42 days (as a political junkie, I had to throw that one in).

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Try These on for Size

Okay, with the presidential election coming up next year, we’ll have to get used to calling one of these persons president. We might as well start trying them out. Here goes …

Democrats:

President Clinton (heard that before)

President Obama (somehow, I just can’t imagine …)

President Edwards (sounds realistic enough to me)

President Richardson (cozy enough)

President Biden (not as cozy)

President Dodd (stability comes to mind)

President Kucinich (yeah, right!)

President Gravel (ditto above)

Republicans:

President Giuliani (sounds a bit European to me)

President Romney (wouldn’t that be better for the leader of the IRA?)

President Thompson (would make a good American president name)

President McCain (another IRA leader?)

President Huckabee (of what, the Confederate States of America?)

President Paul (now that has a nice, alliterative ring to it)

President Hunter (of the NRA?)

President Tancredo (another European-sounding president)