Today the phone rang and caller ID told me it was from “Grazzaville.” We’ve had lots of calls from “Grazzaville” which shows up on the monitor as Graceville, FL, but our caller ID has her own ideas about how things should be pronounced and sometimes it’s just funny.
This morning, I decided to answer, the way I answer most calls I suspect are solicitations. I pick it up, but I say nothing. If it is a recording, I just hang up immediately.
This one, however, was live. “Hi! I’m Natalie, your trip advisor on a recorded line. Can you hear me?”
I know this scam. The question is aimed to get you to say “yes” with which, once they have a recording, they can charge your credit card number – or whatever – and say they have a recording of you giving permission.
I told “Natalie” that to take our number off her list, that we do not want to receive calls from them. I’m probably just wasting my breath, but at least we now know what all the calls from “Grazzaville” are about, and we can safely not answer.
October 4, 2019
Posted by intlxpatr |
Crime, Financial Issues, Lies, Rants, Scams |
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A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
–Samuel Adams, revolutionary (27 Sep 1722-1803)
I love A Word a Day, and it was one of the first websites I would recommend for my students aspiring to speak English well. I also recommend it for English speaking students who will be taking college entrance exams – vocabulary is a BIG part of succeeding on those tests.
He also includes a pertinent thought, which I often find provokes reflection, as does today’s.
September 27, 2019
Posted by intlxpatr |
Bureaucracy, Character, Civility, Community, Counter-terrorism, Crime, Leadership, Lies, Political Issues, Values, Words |
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Forgive me for going political, but occasionally I have to let off steam.
I was raised with guns. My husband fought in Vietnam; we have great respect for weapons of all kinds, and when they are needed, and the damage they can inflict. We believe in protecting ourselves.
We don’t need an assault rifle.
When the governor of Texas pulled a sad face and talked about the need to protect Texans, without getting specific, the hair on the back of my neck started going up. Another politician hiding what he is really saying, I thought. When pushed, he referred to the eight new laws going into effect that very day, the same day another angry white American-born male had shot and killed seven people and wounded many more.
He carried an assault rifle. First killed was a policeman making a traffic stop.
The gun laws that the governor referred to as going into effect, each and every law, protect gun ownership and allow guns legally to be carried in more places.
Churches, synagogues and mosques.
Schools.
God forbid.
More guns, in my experience, do NOT make us more safe.
While we were with the military, guns which were not being used for training purposes (or war) were locked up. Every base, every unit has it’s own weapons storage center, kept under lock and key, and those are the rules for professionals with a huge familiarity with guns, and their proper handling, and their capabilities.
Any person can become temporarily insane. I myself have had moments when I knew I was capable of killing, especially to protect my child, or another innocent. None of us know what we are capable of under extreme stress or circumstances.
I can imagine NO circumstance under which it would be appropriate for me to carry an assault weapon.
Here, courtesy of CNN, are the eight new gun laws the governor cited in his lily-livered bow to the NRA:
The laws will further loosen gun restrictions in a state that’s had four of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern US history, including the El Paso shooting last month, when a gunman stormed a Walmart and killed 22 people.
The new measures were all passed during the 2019 legislative session, which ended in June.
Here are the sweeping firearm laws going into effect:
Weapons on school grounds
House Bill 1143 says a school district cannot prohibit licensed gun owners, including school employees, from storing a firearm or ammunition in a locked vehicle on a school parking lot — provided they are not in plain view.
Kris Brown, president of gun violence prevention advocacy group Brady, criticized the bill going into effect September 1.
“Many states took the opportunity in the last two years to learn lessons from the tragedies in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, and the every day gun violence that plagues our citizens, and enacted new laws to protect public safety through expanded background checks and extreme risk laws,” Brown said.
“Texas lawmakers, instead … doubled down on an NRA led agenda to encourage guns everywhere, no matter the risks and costs to safety.”
Marshals at schools
House Bill 1387 loosens restrictions on how many armed school marshals a school district can appoint.
Guns in foster homes
House Bill 2363 allows some foster homes to store firearms and ammunition in a safe and secure place for personal protection. Proper storage must be followed, the bill says, including putting firearms and ammunition together in the same locked locations.
Weapons in apartments
House Bill 302 bans homeowners or landlords of rental property from prohibiting residents from lawfully possessing, carrying, transporting or storing a firearm or ammunition in the property.
Handguns during a disaster
House Bill1177 prohibits residents from being charged with a crime for carrying a handgun while evacuating from a state or local disaster area.
Firearms in places of worship
Senate Bill 535 clarifies the possession of firearms at churches, synagogues or other places of worship. It allows licensed handgun owners to legally carry their weapons in places of worship — and comes nearly two years after a gunman killed 26 people at Sutherland Springs church.
“We have learned many times over that there is no such thing as a gun free zone. Those with evil intentions will violate the law and carry out their heinous acts no matter what,” state Sen. Donna Campbell, co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “It makes no sense to disarm the good guys and leave law-abiding citizens defenseless where violent offenders break the law to do great harm.”
The bill will make things clearer, she said.
“The existing statute is confusing and clunky when it comes to clearly stating the rights of licensed Texans to carry on the premises of a church. This bill provides clarity of the Legislature’s intent to treat churches in the same manner as other privately owned establishments in Texas.”
A landlord cannot forbid tenants to carry or store guns on the rental premises. People can carry guns, by law, into houses of worship, even those where mass shootings have occurred. And guns are allowed in foster homes?? Good grief.
On a brighter note, Walmart announced to day restrictions on selling certain kinds of ammunition; restricting gun sales may be around the corner.
This is NOT a mental health issue. This is an issue where normal but angry people have access to weapons which kill many people, quickly. The first step is to re-instate the assault weapon ban. Now.
September 3, 2019
Posted by intlxpatr |
Bureaucracy, Character, Civility, Community, Cultural, Health Issues, Interconnected, Law and Order, Lies, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Quality of Life Issues, Rants, Safety, Social Issues, Stranger in a Strange Land, Survival, Values | Assault weapon ban, corruption, mass murders, National Rifle Association, political influence of NRA, Texas gun laws |
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The Psalm from today’s Lectionary readings:
140 Eripe me, Domine
1 Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers; *
protect me from the violent,
2 Who devise evil in their hearts *
and stir up strife all day long.
3 They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; *
adder’s poison is under their lips.
4 Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; *
protect me from the violent,
who are determined to trip me up.
5 The proud have hidden a snare for me
and stretched out a net of cords; *
they have set traps for me along the path.
6 I have said to the Lord, “You are my God; *
listen, O Lord, to my supplication.
7 O Lord God, the strength of my salvation, *
you have covered my head in the day of battle.
8 Do not grant the desires of the wicked, O Lord, *
nor let their evil plans prosper.
9 Let not those who surround me lift up their heads; *
let the evil of their lips overwhelm them.
10 Let hot burning coals fall upon them; *
let them be cast into the mire, never to rise up again.”
11 A slanderer shall not be established on the earth, *
and evil shall hunt down the lawless.
12 I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the poor *
and render justice to the needy.
13 Surely, the righteous will give thanks to your Name, *
and the upright shall continue in your sight.
Yesterday, several news sources discussed the rapid growth of the American Civil Liberties Union; this one is from Politicus USA:
Thanks to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has more than quadrupled its membership, according to an article in The New York Times.
Before Trump’s election the group had just 400,000 members and most of its actions were out of the public eye. But now, after 15 months of the Trump presidency, the membership is over 1.8 million and it has become one of the most active and visible opponents of Trump’s agenda.
Donations to the nonprofit group have also increased exponentially. The ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, said that the organization has raised over $120 million since the 2016 presidential election. Before that watershed election, he said, donations had been in the range of just $3 million to $5 million annually.
Romero said that concerns over Trump’s attack on constitutional rights and civil liberties have brought a whole new generation of political activists into their group. “Until Trump most of our support came from people who have been with us since we challenged Nixon,” Romero told the Times. “Now we’re kind of cool. Cool’s not a word generally associated with us.”
The surge in membership, coupled with the massive increase in contributions, has for the first time given the ACLU all the resources it needs to fight Trump and other administration officials in court and elsewhere. They have been involved in more than 100 legal actions against Trump administration policies, including the White House’sseries of travel bans on the citizens of several Muslim-majority nations, which happened shortly after he took office.
More recently, the group has been challenging the Justice Department’s family separation policies, Trump’s voter fraud commission and the president’s reversal of an Obama-era contraception mandate.
According to Romero, his group has over 170 times taken what he calls “Trump-related legal actions” since he became president. This number includes the filing of 83 lawsuits, Romero said.
As the Trump administration steps up its attacks on refugees and asylum seekers, the ACLU has been filing class action lawsuits and also seeking injunctions to attempt to make the government stop separating families and incarcerating children. In some cases they have already been successful, and they are continuing to fight for the legal rights of people who may have been illegally detained and deprived of due process.
The large increase in ACLU membership is a good sign for American democracy. It shows that many Americans not only disapprove of Donald Trump’s policies and actions but are willing to support the fight against them. Ultimately this may be what saves our country from becoming a dictatorship and what preserves and protects the Constitution of the United States of America.
I’m one of those people. I used to think the ACLU was extreme, that was until I saw them first to man the tables offering free legal advice to incoming passengers the night Trump implemented his first travel ban. I sent my first check. I was asked why I had joined, and I told them because they are now our front line against thugs with no moral values, oppressors of the poor, led by a heartless, selfish, man who must be reined in. They sent me a sweet little ACLU pin, which I don’t dare wear in Pensacola.
July 6, 2018
Posted by intlxpatr |
Bureaucracy, Character, Civility, Crime, Cross Cultural, Cultural, Faith, Free Speech, Leadership, Lectionary Readings, Lies, Political Issues, Values | ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union |
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clipartxtras.com
AdventureMan is hollering from his office to mine “Can I read you something?”
We all find ways to express our indignation. He writes directly to our president, our representative (he calls him Trump’s butt-boy, to me, not to him), to Pruitt. He tells them, in acceptable language, exactly what he thinks.
“I’d say ( . . . . ), but as a retired army officer, I think I am still subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice),” he says, and censors himself so that he is within civil boundaries.
How did we come to this, when our own national leader lies, again and again, even in the same day, and we have come to accept this as “normal?” How can we accept his calling people who are brown, and seeking a safer, better way of life “vermin” and their countries as “s-tholes?” The unthinkable has become our daily reality. It is not only the children, separated from their parents, who are becoming traumatized, it is also normal every-day Americans who believe that the American Dream is for everyone.
I think the American president is afraid of a world in which our nation is more brown than white, which it is well on it’s way to becoming. I think the thought of losing power terrifies him. I can’t imagine any other rational reason for his behavior towards the “other,” the stranger, those he labels as enemies.
So while I am startled when AdventureMan tells me he self-censors, I also understand. The unimaginable had manifested itself daily since this man was elected, and he will stop at no ends to complete his agenda. His cronies and fellow thugs will thrive, while we drink polluted water, and watch oil seep on to our shores from the off-shore drilling. We will watch our public schools fail, and our jails overflow. My heart breaks on a daily basis, watching what we, as a nation, are becoming.
I used to think the ACLU were a bunch of wackos. When the first travel ban went into effect, and we watched the stunned travelers arrive only to be told they must go back, the ACLU had tables in the airports offering free legal services. I sent my first check that night. I DO protest, via RESISTBOT (text Resist to 50409) wondering if my voice even matters. Sending checks to those who are resisting successfully gives me greater satisfaction. Reaching out my hands to “the other” gives me greater satisfaction. Building bridges and connections feeds my feelings of resistance, that together we can make a difference.
June 22, 2018
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Character, Civility, Community, Counter-terrorism, Cultural, Faith, Family Issues, Free Speech, Interconnected, Leadership, Lies, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Quality of Life Issues, Random Musings, Relationships, Social Issues, Values |
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I don’t have a bucket list. There are things I would like to do, and to the best of my ability, I just keep doing them, but I don’t worry about checking things off. If I don’t do it, I must not have cared enough. At the same time I am following in the Wake of the Vikings, my best friend from college is walking more than 100 miles on a trip. 100 miles! She showed me her Fit-bit readings, and she is doing like 38,000 steps a day!
You go, friend! (Not me!) There are days I do 10,000 steps, and once I even did 20,000 but I don’t expect those to happen often. I am proud for my friend to do this, and I have other challenges 🙂
Having said that, I really wanted to see the Viking Ship Museum, oh yeh, me and ten thousand other visitors in Oslo, and how on earth do we all end up at the museum at the same time? By deserting my group, and waiting patiently, I was able to get some people-less shots. You can’t imagine how hard that is.
I really like this one, above, because of the parallel shadow; the influences of the early Norse culture live on.
Imagine the patience and artistry it took to carve this piece!
This is a wagon; sorry for the reflection but it is encased in plastic to protect it from all the people (like me) who might like to touch . . . It was interesting to me to see a wheel built out of sections held together with metal clips.
This is a carved sled – imagine all that trouble for an item of daily use. Must be the long, cold, dark winters gave them the time to imagine and bring to reality.
Another sled. So beautiful.
This is a small museum, but inspiring. There is also a movie, which I missed because I wanted to take photos without other people in them.
I find Oslo beautiful. I find their traditional buildings beautiful, even those with grass roofs. How practically beautiful! And the new buildings they are doing knock my socks off! Look at the “iceberg” and at their new Opera and Ballet center!
I
This might look like the same photo as the above, but the above is to show some of the new high rises going up, where below is to highlight the statue called She Lies. I love this collection of statues. This is another one I would give to high school students and ask them to tell me the story. The body language is so ambivalent, I am sure that there are as many possibilities as there are viewers!
More traditional Oslo; less daring, equally beautiful.
September 11, 2017
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Adventure, Arts & Handicrafts, Beauty, Cultural, ExPat Life, Lies, Quality of Life Issues, Travel | Norway, Oslo, She Lied, Viking Ship, Viking Ship Museum |
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This morning we got another phone call from the “IRS” saying it was our final notice that they were filing a suit against us. We are actually in pretty good contact with the IRS ourselves, and this scam phone call doesn’t even give our hearts a tiny flutter.
But it does make me angry, thinking of the vulnerable people who may panic, who may fall for this and call them back, who may even, in all good faith, believe that this is the way the IRS operates and end up sending them money.
Those of you who have time on your hands might want to call the number and tell them what you think. If you are an IRS official, even better. People who prey on other people for their livelihood need to find another way to earn a living.
February 1, 2017
Posted by intlxpatr |
Communication, Crime, Lies, Money Management, Rants, Scams | IRS lawsuit |
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You all know me – I read. I especially read newspapers and reliable news magazines, and I read even the small articles. I get two wonderful news services that alert me to sometimes obscure stories, or stories the bigger news channels aren’t carrying.
On social media, I often check a story one of my friends has posted. I use Snopes, by preference.
Today, in Digg, is a lengthy article you will want to read – about Snopes.
Here is the leading quote:
The fact-checking website was launched to correct urban legends and false rumours. Now, with even presidential candidates repeating fake stories from the web, its co-founder David Mikkelson says ‘the bilge is rising faster than you can pump’
Here is the full article from The Guardian.
Free speech doesn’t mean you can lie and get away with it. And free speech is critical to contradict a really BIG liar
August 2, 2016
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Civility, Cultural, Free Speech, Lies, Political Issues, Values |
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“We had a phone call from the IRS,” I told AdventureMan as he headed upstairs for reading time with the Grandson.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I got one too, this morning,” he replied. “Is this about the lawsuit?”
“Yep.” I said calmly, continuing with my Honey Cake.
We’ve had a long relationship with the Internal Revenue Service. As with any long relationships, sometimes there are misunderstandings, miscommunications, even face-to-face meetings with questions, answers and resolutions. Our taxes are complicated by investments and a variety of retirement vehicles, and years and years of overseas living and earnings. It’s complicated. It’s a very normal long-term relationship.
I am posting this because this phone call is a SCAM. The phone call sounds very threatening:
THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. THE IRS WILL FILE A LAWSUIT AGAINST YOU IMMEDIATELY! YOU NEED TO CALL 302-766-2673 IMMEDIATELY!
This is not the way the IRS communicates with taxpayers.
Please warn those vulnerable to deception about this scam.
May 2, 2016
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Bureaucracy, Character, Counter-terrorism, Crime, Cultural, Customer Service, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Financial Issues, Lies, Scams | IRS Scam |
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Here There and Everywhere 