Posts by AllAlongTheWatchtower

16

Canadian Gas Revolt

by OUTLAW in

jw
friends

as of june 1st 2007..many canadians will not be purchasing gas from petro-canada.....why?.....to start a price war.....this will drop the price of gas in this country.....a question for my fellow canadians..will you be participating?

?...outlaw

AllAlongTheWatchtower

Anti gas price emails have been circulating since around 98-99; know what? They're all crap. For one thing, not everybody will participate, some people will still frequent whichever company is the current demon because they have that company's credit card, or just like that company, or are apathetic in general. Even if people were willing to participate, there's a number of reasons it STILL wouldn't work-because gas companies buy and sell gas to each other...which is why I always laugh when people say "brand x gas works best in my car"...unless it's that clear colored Amoco stuff, you have no idea which company's gas you're actually putting in your car.

It never ceases to amaze me when two gas stations on one street corner are doing about the same amount of business, despite the fact that brand x station is a nickel+ higher than brand y station, yet it happens all the time. Maybe the cigarettes are cheaper, or the coffee is better, or whatever, but people will still go to brand x station.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasoline.asp#gasout

The above link refutes about a half dozen popular gas price email campaigns, individual links are provided on that page.

52

Would Any of You be Interested in going Door to Door?

by smellsgood in

jw
friends

as part of a cult awareness campaign of sorts???

to de-ignorize (new word) householders and give them tools for engaging a cult member on their door step?

i had that idea and got some positive feedback...so, any of you would find that something you would want to participate in ?

AllAlongTheWatchtower

Exactly, that is illegal, dont leave anything in mailboxes, however what about those plastic newspaper boxes that fit right below mailboxes? - Junction-Guy While I do not specifically know what the law is on that particular point, I have always worked under the assumption that those boxes are the property of the newspaper or the homeowner, and treat them the same was as mailboxes-off limits. It's something of an annoyance when I work with teams of people, those boxes are usually right at the street, and much easier to reach than going to the house door, so people naturally tend to be lazy and want to put marketing material in them-I once had to take a team back to a street that was already covered, and make them do it all over.

52

Would Any of You be Interested in going Door to Door?

by smellsgood in

jw
friends

as part of a cult awareness campaign of sorts???

to de-ignorize (new word) householders and give them tools for engaging a cult member on their door step?

i had that idea and got some positive feedback...so, any of you would find that something you would want to participate in ?

AllAlongTheWatchtower

Then do a flyer up outlining the inconsistencies, lies or cover up complete with references and drop them off in people's mailboxes. - Mary

My job involves some marketing and sales work, I know from experience that in the US at least, that is illegal. You cannot place unstamped material in a mailbox, doing so can result in being sent a bill from the post office at the very least, and charges/court/fines at worst. You CAN put things on people's doors, under their windshield wipers on cars, etc...but NEVER in the mailbox.

52

Would Any of You be Interested in going Door to Door?

by smellsgood in

jw
friends

as part of a cult awareness campaign of sorts???

to de-ignorize (new word) householders and give them tools for engaging a cult member on their door step?

i had that idea and got some positive feedback...so, any of you would find that something you would want to participate in ?

AllAlongTheWatchtower

While the thought has merit, doesn't such a campaign run the risk of having you come off as just as odd and intrusive as the JWs in service?

33

Who is your favorite animated cartoon character?

by gaiagirl in

my favorite would have to be marvin the martian (first appearance 1948).

everything about him cracks me up, from his roman gladiator helmet and kilt, to the way he walks and speaks ("that makes me angry, very angry indeed"), to the ultra cool devices he uses (suprisingly, from acme, who apparantly has outlets on mars).

a very close second, almost a tie, would have to go to droopy (first appearance 1943), who also walks and speaks in a humorous manner, and who has abilities far beyond what would be expected from his dimunitive size.

AllAlongTheWatchtower

I grew up watching stuff like Tom & Jerry, Jetsons, Scooby Doo...many favorites over the years, often they changed as my tastes or personality changed. As a kid, one of my favorites was Jonny Quest (one of the few I didn't have to watch on the sly or feel quilty about, cause he was a "good character" because of the father being such an integral part of teaching him morals, etc, but he was still cool and got to have lots of neat adventures). Speed Racer was one of my childhood favorites too, because I liked watching car races on tv back then, and anything with a monkey was just awesome! (BJ and the Bear, Tarzan, even Mutual of Omaha nature specials, anything with monkeys.) Most cartoons came on Saturday mornings though, and in the WWCG, many parents strictly enforced a no tv on Saturdays rule. Of couse, when betamax came out, that didn't stop most of those same parents from taping Dallas on Friday nights, more liberal ones might have let their kids tape the morning cartoons too, dunno.

Though I wouldn't really say it's my favorite, I've most often compared myself too, and sorta oddly relate to, Wile E Coyote...he's not actually dumb, just seems to fail no matter what. Has brains, or he wouldn't be able to draw up all those grandiose plans. I consider myself pretty smart, in my opinion my natural intelligence is pretty high up there, I seldom meet people with higher...but because of church doctrine, and later for financial reasons, I never went to college, and feel like I could be doing so much better in life than I am now...can't ever seem to catch my roadrunner, though.

I'm also rather fond of sometimes saying "I'm smarter than the av-er-age bear", usually to pat myself on the back after solving some problem or other at work...and then follow that by saying "but the average bear is probably dumb as bricks, with an IQ of about 20-30, so whatever".

147

Atheists, Why the Anger?

by XJW4EVR in

ok, so you deny the existence of a god, or you lack belief in a god.

my question why do you get so angry over a mythical being?

no one gets as upset over the tooth fairy, santa claus or the easter bunny, as i have seen some of the atheists on this board get over the slightest mention of god.

AllAlongTheWatchtower

I had an interesting experience tonight...considered making a new topic for it, but wasn't sure where to put it, then remembered this thread. For the last couple months, this guy has been coming by my place of work (which is open to the public) late at night and shouting "He's coming back, JESUS loves you! Repent now and be saved" etc etc etc. The first time was just a little weird, my coworkers and I just kinda looked around at each other and burst out laughing. Then he started coming back...and back...and back. Three times a week, on average-usually on weekends, and always late at night, midnightish or later. (I posted about it then too, on a thread about whether you ever went out in service in the wee hours of the morning.)

So, a couple weeks ago I grew annoyed, and resolved to do something about it. The next time he opened our door to shout in as was his custom, I shouted back..."Beelzebub loves you too" or something of the sort, don't actually remember, but my coworkers thought it was a riot...he stopped coming by for a while after that, though once he drove by the parking lot and shouted out his usual message from his moving car rather than coming to our door, we all joked that he'd been run off, probably thought we were all hell-bound sinners or something, lol.

This weekend he returned, with a vengeance. Started preaching in the parking lot, yelling that "God sent Hurricane Katrina because the homosexuals were having a parade". I couldn't resist shouting back "Yeah, that's what Jerry Falwell said too, and look at him-he's dead!" This was Saturday night, and our regional manager happened to show up, so I felt like I needed to "be good", else I might have had a few more choice comments to make. I took him (manager) aside, and explained what a nuisance this guy was, and asked if there was something we could do about it, legally. He said that the company didn't actually own the parking lot, the job is in a large building containing several other businesses, whoever owned the whole thing would have to originate the complaint. He did ask the guy politely to leave, though. Didn't really work, but he left eventually, clearly not because he'd been asked to, though. Meanwhile, some comments went back and forth, even the regional manager joined in trying to bait the guy on some bit of doctrine or other, he got so annoyed.

Sunday night he came back again. We must have really riled his preaching side (at some point or other, this guy has claimed to be a pastor...I can only imagine his congregation), because this time he parked his car in the parking lot, opened up all the doors, and blasted out Christian music from his car stereo, all the while preaching away in the parking lot and singing along to the music. Some of the things I recall him saying/shouting/singing were: "The love of Jesus is a pure love...it can't be beat...FORNICATION don't beat it...ADULTERY don't beat it...DRINKING don't beat it...DRUGS don't beat it..." The rational side of me was saying 'wasn't fornication and adultery said seperately redundant?' but I was about ready to boil by now-I'd had enough. I called the local police non-emergency number, and they sent a unit out in about 5 minutes and told him to move it along. As he left he shouted out "I'll respect your private property, but JESUS STILL LOVES YOU". Ugh. What a whack job.

Remains to be seen if he will take the hint, or what will come of this...I almost hope he comes back, so I can call the police again-they made it clear that they would be more than happy to, should the need arise.

26

Which of these Dinosaurs is dying the fastest

by free2beme in

jw
friends

which of the following companies do you think will die first.

the phone company.

the paper news paper.

AllAlongTheWatchtower

Perhaps I'm a bit of a dinosaur myself, cause my guess would be post office rather than newspaper, which seems to be the popular concensus so far. I read the paper every day (usually only the front page stuff, a bit of the sports section during football season only, and I always do the crossword and look at the op-ed pieces). I very rarely however, use the post office. Most of the mail I receive is junk (ads, mailers, etc) and a few bills, although most of the companies I have business relationships with even have a 'paperless billing' option, where you just get an email saying it's time to pay-then I do so using their website. I haven't sent an honest to goodness LETTER in years.

Even so, the government may keep the fossil alive the way they have other things...in the states, there is quite the debate every few years or so as to whether the government should let Amtrak die of natural causes. Some think that if they stopped subsidizing it, it would make way for commercial rail developement on a par with the service that is available in places like Europe and Japan. Others say that if Amtrak collapses, nothing will fill the void, and it must be kept alive at all costs. That's probably the biggest dinosaur there is, here in the states at least.

25

Have a question for you guys.....

by lavendar in

jw
friends

my husband and i were just wondering.......if a son, who is a jw, inherits a large sum of money from his non-jw parents, is he required by his kh or the wts to give a portion to them??.

thanks very much for any information!.

lavendar .

AllAlongTheWatchtower

I'm no lawyer, but would it be possible to do something like this: set it up with your attorney so that the portion you wish to leave to him, automatically goes toward paying off his mortgage or car loan, or some other bill that would help him and his wife out? Of course, as someone else said, even if he respected your wishes and didn't give any inherited money to the WTS, he could still feel as though he were on "easy street" and give more of his own money...which amounts to the same thing.

33

I hate Bank of America

by lola28 in

jw
friends

how many of you hate hate bof a as well and why?.

lola.

AllAlongTheWatchtower

Yes, I despise them too. For me it started with something rather petty, back when they were still called Nations Bank. I was living in Baltimore, MD, and the city was trying to get a new football team to replace the Colts; Nations Bank was supposed to provide the loan for the city to buy the expansion franchise from the NFL commission. They backed out of the deal near the last minute, and financed another city instead.

Lest you think I'm a complete moron with shallow interests, at around that same time one of my best friends had an account with Nations Bank, and was always complaining about how their fees were the highest of any other bank. I also noticed that any ATMs owned by Nations Bank had the highest fees; this was around 1998 or so, when most ATMs were still only charging $1 or maybe $1.50, Nations Bank was charging $2 or $2.50 (now that's fairly standard).

They've kinda been the company I love to hate over the years, and I sort of keep track mentally of all the bad things I've heard about them, or experienced myself. Such as the fact that they were charging my wife $5 to cash a paycheck issued on Bank of America by her employer, because she didn't have an account with them. And while you might say much of this is standard money-grubbing by the banking business, Bank of America seems to lead the pack in greed...I've often shopped around over the years for cheaper banking (up until I joined my employer's credit union), and BoA was almost always the worst, unless you happened to have a couple grand to put into an account to get cheaper/free rates.

25

Kevorkian is free!

by startingover in

jw
friends

personally, i would like to have the choice to end my life if i chose to do so and see nothing wrong with having a professional help me with it.

i have watched several people die and to me it's just plain cruel to put someone through that.

we would never think of letting an animal suffer like that but yet some people in this country think they need to jail a person willing to help speed up the process.

AllAlongTheWatchtower

I'm on the fence on this one...on the one hand, I think people who are really suffering should be allowed to choose their own destiny. On the other hand, I think about the possibility of dishonest family members out to inherit faster, or other ulterior motives. I definitely do NOT want a kind of world where people go off to some movie-esque death chamber when their alloted time is up (ala Soylent Green, Logan's Run) or just to conserve resources. Whether the former would be a slippery slope to the latter is pure speculation, but enough to give me the heebie-geebies.

And of course, if the government got involved, it would be so red-taped it would be ridiculous. I mean, think of the legal procedures involved now in deathrow inmates...their arm has to be swabbed with alcohol before recieving the injection, can't risk infection now, can we? Can you imagine some poor senior suffering from cancer or something, being faced with a multi-thousand dollar bill to end their life? Well, Mr. Jones, that'll be 500 dollars for your 1 day hospital stay, 10 dollars for aspirin, 20 dollars for alchohol swab, etc etc etc.

And of course, then there's the problem with insurance...many life insurance policies carry a no suicide clause...if euthanasia became legal, what of that? Makes me think of that movie with Tom Selleck where his aging parents keep trying to die, but all the bad luck falls on Tom's character instead of them getting hurt.