Who are you voting for?

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It’s an easy question, or so one would think. But I am curious, unless you live in Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii or Maryland, you may not know who you are actually voting for. Think I am kidding? I am not.

These four states have decided to change their electoral votes to the popular vote in what is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, but in every other state, you are not voting for John McCain or Barack Obama like you think you are. You are voting for your electoral college representative, who will decide who he thinks should be president for you.

Some states don’t even put the electoral college representatives names on the ballot. Instead they just list the candidates for you to vote for, but that doesn’t mean they will pledge their vote to that candidate. Electoral college representatives have the right to change their mind or to vote against their party.

So how much power does your vote have?

That’s the question.

When you look around online, watch local news or otherwise try to find actual electoral college representatives, they are not easy to find, yet these are the people representing you. How much do you know about your representatives?

I can take an educated guess: not much.

How democratic is that?


Reiser May Lead Police to Nina’s Body

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Thanks to Asai for sharing this breaking story. Read more here.

I guess that would definitely tell us the truth in this case, and leave no more doubts.

Request for Your Opinion: Poll

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I always struggle determining which cases I should put into the “Dishonesty caught to date before the truth was known” column on the right. With that, I would like your opinion.

Which of the following cases do you believe falls into this category? You can choose more than one option in the poll below, if desired. I have linked to my original posts so you can be the judge.

  1. Joran Van der Sloot (2 years prior to his confession)
  2. Matthew Gretz (10 months prior to his confession)
  3. Hans Reiser (no confession, 5 months prior to conviction for murder)

While I believe Joran Van der Sloot has confessed, can we say it is the truth now?

With Matthew Gretz, I give reasons why I had my doubts about him in my original post, but for some reason I didn’t out-and-out say that I didn’t trust him. I did, however, write enough that if Gretz was found to be innocent, I would have been told I missed it and I clearly would have, but I didn’t.

And with Hans Reiser, he was simply convicted of murder, but does that mean we know the truth?

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Update Added on July 8, 2008:

On July 7th, 2008, Hans Reiser led police to Nina Reiser’s body.

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Dentist Update

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I spoke to my dad this weekend about his crown to find out what happened. He went back to the dentist to get his crown cemented in late last week for the second time. I was curious to know how it all went.

My dad told me after the assistant seated him, and just after the doctor greeted him, he said to the doctor that he did some reading on the web, and saw on Wikipedia that gold crowns were on average 20% less than porcelain crowns. My dad asked why he did not get a reduction in price (when the doctor at the ninth hour had changed the order from porcelain to gold)?

Read moreThe dentist said did you come here today to chew the price down? Is that your goal?

My dad politely said no. I want you to do what you think is fair. I’ll leave that decision up to you on how you want to handle this.

My dad said the dentist immediately said he was going to have that information on Wikipedia removed at once, and that if my dad didn’t trust him to make the appropriate choices for him as a professional then he wasn’t interested to do business with my dad.

My dad immediately pipped up and said that it wasn’t that he didn’t trust him because he had. My dad reminded the dentist of a recent referral my dad had sent to him–a woman who was getting three crowns, and who was also in the middle of her procedure a few weeks behind my dad. My dad said “If I didn’t trust you, I would have never sent you a recommendation.”

The doctor retorted back in an angry voice, “I don’t pay for my recommendations.”

My dad saw things were going well. The dentist was mad, indignant and simply wanted my dad to go away. The dentist left the room and said he had an emergency, but that he would be back.

My dad guesses that the dentist went to check out Wikipedia. He then came back, cemented in my dad’s crown, and told him never to come back.

My dad asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this , and the dentist angrily said yes!

My dad then walked out to pay his bill not knowing what he’d find. He was shocked. There was an additional $200 bill waiting for him–on top of the full price they had agreed upon originally. It was a $200 charge to cement in the crown! Can you believe it? I used to work in a dental office and this is beyond outrageous.

During the last visit, my dad specifically asked if there were any additional charges if they switched to the gold crown from the full priced they had agreed upon, and the dentist said no. Worse, my dad endured extra drilling and pain because of this man’s oversight, or mistake, and now this dentist wanted to charge him more on top of that!

As my dad looked closer, it said “Fee waived”.

Clearly, this dentist thought my dad was an easy take, or at least he had thought that before my dad spoke up. I suspect when the dentist left the room, he went to check out Wikipedia, and then went and corrected his outrageous billing tactics. He should have pulled it, but instead came into the room when my dad was paying his bill, and said I am not charging you for cementing the crown. Instead, I will write off as a loss!

What nonsense. Did he think my dad would think he was honorable? He is an absolute crook!

He not only was dishonest with my dad the first time when his work was rejected by the lab –now he wanted to over-charge my dad on top of it!

This only makes me wonder how often he gets away with this. He is quite arrogant in the face of questionable practices.

When my dad looked at the remaining bill he was prepared to pay, the dentist had reduced the total due by 10%. I guess that was his way of conceding there were valid complaints.

He never provided my dad any explanations, and Wikipedia nearly five days later still shows the cost of a gold crown is on average 20% less than a porcelain crown. He never got that removed. I wonder why?

When money changes hands, I can’t say it enough–be careful. An honest professional should always be willing to explain things if they don’t make sense to you. That’s part of their job as a professional.

They Don’t Believe Me!

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I watched TLC a few weeks back after I saw the preview for Paul McKenna’s show: I Can Make You Thin! I normally would have written the show off because it made such outlandish claims, but since The Learning Channel was featuring the show, I decided to remain open-minded about it, and watch it. After all this wasn’t QVC, this was the learning channel. I am so glad I did.

For me the show was a light-bulb moment. It made sense. The reason I had gained some 20 pounds in the past decade and a half was simple: I was eating unconsciously. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating. Instead of eating with my stomach, I was eating with my eyes. I was eating while stressed and worried about what I had to do next, instead of focusing on how I was feeling when I was eating. There is no doubt about it for me.

Read moreI had no understanding of what hungry and full meant anymore. I was on a repetitive cycle of starving myself, and then gorging to ease the hunger pains. I had lost control as sad as it is to write, and every year, I’d pack on a more pounds.

On Easter Sunday, I sat down for brunch and decided to apply McKenna’s 4 Golden Rules. I was nervous and excited, but I was in for more of a surprise than I realized!

It was like I had been eating in black and white for years, and now that I was eating slowly, savoring every bite, focusing solely on the experience, suddenly my food experience was colorful. It was vibrant and alive!! It was tastier than I ever remembered. Food was satisfying, fulfilling, way more enjoyable, and with that, I had control!

At Easter brunch with family members feasting on the delights all around me, I confidently ate about 40% of what I normally did, and I was happy. I was content. I didn’t have a secret urge to grab another piece of cheesecake and devour it!

That’s amazing.

Yet the rules were so logical, so simple, and so basic. How could I have messed this up?

It was depressing to think that I had ignored my own sense of eating “intuitively”. I was intuitive in every other area of my life except eating. With eating, I had lost myself. While I was sad about it, I decided there was nothing I could do about the water under the bridge, so I decided to refocus on my new found success. I believe I will now be a skinny person. I really do!

When I believe something, I tell people about it. Perfect strangers. I chat, I talk, and I share the joy (when I feel it is appropriate), and in doing so, I can tell you I got priceless looks from people afterwards.

You’d think I was selling the Brooklyn Bridge.

“You can eat whenever you are hungry,” I say. “You can eat whatever you want!! You just stop when you are full, and oh, eat consciously. It’s amaaaazing,” I’d say with incredible enthusiasm. “Check out Paul’s website. It tells you all you need to know!”

No one believe me.

No one.

They’d listen me out, never ask a question and they’d give me that polite, fake smile. I could feel they wanted to me to shut up and go away–the sooner the better.

As I turned my back to walk away, I could feel ridicule follow behind me.

I had never felt such resistance before, so clearly flopping back in my face. I usually get people to open up to me. Not this time. I hit a brick wall. Head on.

I think I could have sold leaded weights to secretaries easier than I can sell this to strangers. Day-after-day of sharing my enthusiasms, each encounter, I walked away knowing I made the person looking at me think I was delusional.

I then read blogs to see what people are saying, and sure enough, there is a handful of skeptics after watching the show, too. They can’t believe it is that easy, and they are going back to weight-watchers!!

Can you believe it? I can’t.

It’s like if it isn’t complicated, people won’t buy it. Thankfully, Paul managed to get through to people. As he said, what do you have to lose by trying it? Perhaps a few pounds?! Why not give it a try?

I believe Paul McKenna is on to something with his 4 Golden Rules. I think he is truly sharing with everyone who is disconnected from food something that can be life-changing.

It’s just no one believes me when I tell them 🙁