Oh Goodie! Another Law 
     As reported by HotelManagement.net it seems there are many dodgy websites taking hotel reservations when they don’t have or represent an actual hotel. I’m guessing they’re taking some kind of advance deposits, or maybe total advance payments. This is deplorable, and this e-mail warning was a good thing. 
     This scamming of travelers has come to the attention of our elected geniuses in Congress, so both the Senate and the House have bills pending. One being House bill 4526 (we don’t have a number for the Senate bill) to curb this illicit behavior on the part of these dastardly scammers. 
     According to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, “This bill intends to crack down on crooks and fraudsters who trick consumers into booking hotel rooms that don’t exist. 
    So we’re getting another law - and this is what I can see happening. To write these bills takes congressional staff people and these staff people need assistants, researchers, and transcribers. To manage such a group there needs be administrative people, such as an administrator, a personnel manager, and a budget compliance officer who needs to be at least a CPA or this group will not be able to hold up their heads in the staff cafeteria. They’ll need a person to monitor the group’s compliance with all federal laws and regulations. Considering the complexity of the laws and regulations, this compliance officer needs to be an attorney. 
     The first thing this attorney will determine is which laws and federal regulations this department needs to follow. It seems to be well accepted that federal departments are not necessarily bound by the laws and regulations Congress has passed for the benefit of those companies out there who can’t be trusted, and therefore need all the laws and regulations. 
     Even with his selective interpretation of the need to comply with their own laws and regulations, the attorney has plenty to do, so much so that he needs his own staff, including a couple investigators to suss out the people in his department who willfully violate the laws he decides they are going to adhere to. Now they’re ready to write the bills. The cost will probably exceed forty million dollars.
     Once the bills are passed and signed into law, the need for some serious money becomes evident. The FBI needs a sub-department to uphold this new law and ride herd on the scumbags who are scamming the poor travelers, who it seems are too slow to just heed a simple warning and protect themselves, but need their government to do it for them. 
      So now the FBI has a new small sub-department. They demand an adjustment to their budget, which of course they get. We can’t expect all these additional people to work for free. Then there is the liaison with Homeland Security, who is overseeing the FBI, (that takes several new people), and then there is the congressional oversight committee. Of course, the congressmen are already being paid, (boy howdy are they being paid!), so the only additional expense to us taxpayers for their involvement is the cost of flying the thirteen committee members to Aruba twice a year. Of course along with them they need staff people, security people, secure communications equipment and people, and their significant others, so they can meet in an atmosphere conducive to the seriousness of being brought up-to-date on how the new department is working. This takes a week. The meetings take three hours. 
     Now the cost of all this consumer protection is only double what the scammers were taking in the first place, but now instead of the poor scammed travelers carrying the whole economic load of being scammed, that cost is being spread over the whole tax-paying public. To balance that is the fact that 158 people now have jobs who didn’t have a prayer of getting employed by employers who didn’t have their paws in the public trough, and instead were forced to make a profit in order to stay in business. 
     Now all that needs to be done is to have this repeated 847 times each year so the President can brag about all the new jobs being created by his/her administration. And with all that effort and money, the FBI has stopped almost 10% of – to paraphrase the good senator – those crooks and fraudsters who trick consumers into booking hotel rooms that don’t exist. 
     And so it goes.

Should We or Should We Not Get a Divorce? – Let’s Ask Our Publicists 

    The media is flogging this divorce of Angelina Jolie and Brad failure the subject of the front page of every sleazy news rag in the country. 
     And then there’s the internet. Every day, or sometimes multiple times per day, the internet media comes up with some additional news Pitt to death. It must be a pain to this couple to have their about this couple and now their kids, who according to the latest I’ve seen, are in therapy because they don’t understand what’s going on. But we can all be comforted because, “Angelina Jolie is staying strong for the kids.” I’m not putting that down, but who needs to know that beside the mother and the kids? 
    And why do we care? Obviously a lot of people do, otherwise the media wouldn’t use this couple’s sorry predicament to draw people into their publications, where the product ads are. 
      I’ve seen both of them in movies and must say that I thought they each did credible jobs. They are obviously very talented. Maybe they should have had scriptwriters and a director for their marriage. 
    But my guess is that these two will remain front page news, at least until someone else who the media thinks will afford them some mileage, comes along and screws up their life in a major (read newsworthy) way. 
     The question that intrigues me is, why are so many people drawn to personal catastrophes such as this particular divorce?      Does it make them feel better about their own divorce or some other screw up in their own lives? 
     Does it pass for entertainment for these people? 
     Does knowing all the details of Angelina and Brad’s divorce make them feel that they’re part of the whole movie, glamorous people, showbiz scene? 
     Or the most pathetic of all, do they have nothing better to do with their time? 
     If they’re really that cavalier about how they spend their time maybe they should start a blog.

Do Not Change the Channel

     The police in Lawrence, Kansas, put out a warning to residents that they didn’t want them getting so emotional over the 9/25 presidential debate that they would be calling 911. Evidently, this has been a problem in the past. 
     I‘m guessing that in Lawrence they have very little in the way of entertainment. It is the only reason I can imagine for them to be getting emotional over a presidential debate, especially the one between Trump and Clinton. I mean comedy usually elicits the emotion of laughter and happiness, but hardly the desire to call 911. 
     There’s something going on in Lawrence that we’re missing. Maybe it’s their proximity to Clinton Lake.

To Watch or Not to Watch 

     While cruising through the TV listings I’ve noticed a program that keeps showing up entitled, Do You Poop Enough? With a catchy title like that, I’m surprised that I’ve not tuned in to see what it’s about. 
     I’d like to meet the marketing person who thought up that title and listen to his rationale. 
     I’ve no idea what the program’s about, but one thing for sure, is that the title is a tad off-putting. Plus there is the suspicion that they are trying to sell something. Now, I don’t know if this program is shown globally or just in Central Oregon. Maybe they think that out here in the desert, with cultural opportunities so few and far between, we’ll be willing to watch anything. I hate to inform them that in this case they’ve misjudged my desperation for entertainment and/or information. 

 When Your Mother Told You to Wear Clean Underwear When You Travel, She Might Have Foreseen This 

 This takes a ‘room with a view’ to a whole new level. In Changsha, China, a resort has built public glass bathrooms. Not glass fixtures, but glass walls. You got it, both the stalls and the urinals plus the occupants are visible to those outside. So people who can’t function without privacy would need to look elsewhere for someplace to relieve themselves. 
    The big question is Why? The reason given is so that people who need to use the facilities can still look out and enjoy the view of the surrounding scenic wooded area. That reason seems a little lame. Is the scenery so compelling that a person can’t disengage from it for the few minutes the bathroom function is going to take? Like I said, the resorts reasoning seems a little dodgy to me. 
    They just may be trying to start a new spectator sport. Think about it!

It Makes You Wonder 

      In Seattle, a man came up to a police officer and told him that someone had seemingly abandoned a brief case after stopping to pet his dog. Later in the same report it claims that the briefcase owner left the case when walking his dog. Whose dog? We’re not really sure. 
      Anyway, when the police opened the case they found bags of cocaine and a scale, along with some pills and other things, all of which are illegal. Also in the briefcase was the owner’s cell phone and an ID card. 
     Sometime later, the owner, a 19-year old genius, approached police and asked them about the missing briefcase. He told them that it contained some important papers that he needed. Of course when he identified the briefcase as his he was arrested for possession of all the illegal contents. 
     Now, first of all this 19-year old walks away and leaves a briefcase whose contents are worth a good deal of money. Why he would do this is a mystery. It seems this dog has really thrown him off his game. Then to prove that he is not very bright he went to the police and asked if they had found his drugs.

This May Be Something He’ll Want to Leave off His Resume 

      In California, a burglar broke into the playroom of the Indio YMCA and stole a bunch of play money out of a toy cash register. The problem with this is that stealing things, and money is probably high on his list, is the way this thief makes his living. Play money will not get him closer to his goal of financial independence. 
     Now he’s just the laughing stock of the Indio criminal element, or so I’m surmising. When that element gets together to plan some caper, and they’re handing out assignments, they’ll say to our thief, “Sorry, Bud, this caper doesn’t include lifting any play money.” That comment will probably be followed by their all laughing until they fall down. 
    It would be enough to make a guy change his career path. 

 Goat? Sheep? Who Cares?   

     Sometimes you get the feeling that certain civil servants just don’t have enough to do. For instance: the Halton, Ontario, regional police issued a warning to the people they’d sworn to protect and serve that there was a goat on the loose and that they should drive carefully while the police tried to return the goat to its owner. They even published a picture of the goat. 
    That caused a problem because the animal, according to “an officer with more expert knowledge,” announced that the animal was actually a newly shorn sheep. 
     I’m guessing that someone finally asked the owner what the lost animal was and it was confirmed to be a goat. It seems everyone was relieved to have that settled, meantime the goat is still at large. So people in the Halton, Ontario, area, drive with care, it’s like a barnyard out there. 

There It Is, You Figure It Out

Headline: 

 Minnesota Driver Waits for Mouse to Leave Her Car on Side of Highway 

    From this headline we would have to assume that the mouse was driving this lady’s car and that she waited for the mouse to park her car alongside the highway. Well, don’t look at me, that’s what it says. 
    One obvious conclusion is that the writer skipped Headline Writing 101 in Journalism school. However, after further reading we might deduce, even if the writer doesn’t make it easy, that maybe the woman after finding a mouse in her car, (probably not driving), left her car on the shoulder, and was found there by the police, waiting along the road, you got it, for the mouse to leave her car along the highway. 
    I’m acquainted with some journalism majors and their kids could write a better story than this. 
    And we still don’t know if the mouse ever got out of the car or not.