Moo! The Musings of a Plaid Cow

Question: Do you think ministers have a constitutional right to advise their worshippers how to vote?

Ministers should absolutely have the right to tell their congregation how to vote, get their church labeled as a political group and lose their tax exempt status. Are they afraid that their teachings have been so ineffective that their members cannot apply them in real life to make their own decisions?

MyCityDaily opinion poll response for today.

Oh Laptop, why do you financially mock me by chucking a disk while I am creating a budget in order to spend less money on keeping you happy?

Question: Do you think that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving under the influence?

Anything that raises driver load while operating a moving vehicle makes it harder to be be a good driver. This includes texting. And driving under the influence. And having other people in the car. And talking on the phone, listening to the radio, eating lunch, smoking cigars, putting on makeup, changing clothes, or any of the other of thousands of things people do while driving a vehicle besides paying attention.

Is driving while texting worse than driving under the influence? In some cases yes. Why have we as a society digressed to the point where we have to ask “is doing something else while I am driving dangerous?”

MyCityDaily opinion poll response for today.

The TiVo Support line has an interesting method to get people off the line when they are talking to a CSR. They put you on hold and make you listen to their hold music. Which is a voice that sounds just like the operator you were just talking to, on a 16 second loop. They only have sixteen seconds of information to tell you and they repeat it over, and over, and over, and

If email is overwhelming your life and your inbox is out of control, I would highly recommend checking out the Inbox Zero series of posts on 43 Folders. It can make a huge difference in how you look at email. I don’t agree with everything that is presented, but it is cathartic to be able to have an empty (or near empty Inbox). If there are any emails which still need to be followed up on or replied to, they stay in the Inbox. I don’t trust that I will ever look at emails which are in a separate “To Process” box.

My main account is now down to five messages in the Inbox. (Once this Inbox is finished, I will be starting on the other two inboxes: 110 and 44 messages respectively.)

One day at a time. And the count keeps going down.

is wondering how well the WordPress integration works and whether or not it is worth all of the trouble. Initial guess: it’s not.

A similar plugin for Mac OSX Mail has also been available for quite a while. I’ve been using it for several years without nay problems. [www.bazza.com]

There is also another plugin which does the same thing and works in 10.4. [www.hawkwings.net]

Lifehacker comment on Gmail Labs Adds Forgotten Attachment Detector.

Regarding the Consumerist post on United: Did We Say $25 For The Second Bag? How About $50:

United Airlines is finally implementing a policy where those who cost more to fly, pay more to be able to do so. This doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me. If you think it is too much, then don’t fly.

The goal of UAL is to make money. If they can get rid of the most costly customers to fly (and still have enough to fill the planes), they make more money. It seems like a pretty easy connection to make.

Regarding the LifeHacker post on Create a Stuff Replacement Fund to Declutter and Make Money:

This solution of selling what you don’t want so you can buy stuff that you do want is fighting the dragon at the wrong end: don’t buy the stuff you don’t need at the beginning. When you do find something you want, then look at the total cost of ownership over time and determine if you really do need it. How many times a week do you need to use a rice cooker, hot dog roaster, ice tea pot or electric griddle to make it easier than putting a pot on the stove?

Regarding the Consumerist post on Ever Used A Gift Card At Buy.com? Surprise, You May Owe Them Money:

I’m surprised that it has taken them two years to find out there is a problem, but if you agreed to the charge, I don’t think that there will be much of a chance to contest it. Since I actually put all of my charges into Quicken when they occur, I can note when charges I made don’t actually get charged to my account (there have been a few). It’s not a “surprise”–you knew you owed them money and just never got charged for it.

Would everyone still be pro-consumer if the shoe was on the other foot and after two years a personal audit indicated they should have a credit on an account? Or would the sentiment be that the consumer should have kept better records and “too bad for you”. If two years is too long, what is an appropriate length of time?