Skeptic

A skeptic is a thinker, not a blind believer, but you already know that.

I laugh when ‘they’ use the word -or the term- to characterize someone who happens to have a different opinion, or point of view from them.  It’s obvious, that is the whole purpose of this, isn’t it?  Seize the definition, and then prove it wrong.

It’s wonderful to be a Skeptic, but who isn’t?  Unfortunately, far too many, who farm out and subcontract others to do their thinking for them.  But fortunately, we still have the right to think whatever we want, whatever we like, whatever we wish, the most wonderful nonsense, the most brilliant ideas.

We need to continue to fight for the right to be skeptics. So, dear journalists and assorted religious nuts, you’d better use some other words.  Like “controversialist,” “dissenter,” “arguer,” “questioner,” etc.

Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion – including freedom FROM religion, freedom of action – as long as it harms no-one else. As Braveheart, William Wallace, said, FREEDOM. I am not skeptical about that.

Just be careful not to topple over the edge to Cynic. I’ve seen some militant Atheists – actually anti-Theists – interviewed, and asked, “If you were presented with proof of the Christian God, would you believe?” And they answer, “NO!” That is just foolish, rebellious cynicism. Believe what you want, but have a good reason for it.

WOW #47

The Word Of this Week is a word that we all know – or should; it’s

Phishing

Phishing Trip

Ring……..ring……..ring……..
Son – Hello
……..(one second……..(two seconds)……..(three seconds)……..(four seconds) click
(Boiler room – 50 voices in background)
Strike one!
Paki – Hellooo….is this Mr. J. Smith?
Phone is in the wife’s name – Mrs. J. Smith
Strike two!
Son – Yes
Paki – This is the security Department of Visa (Sure it is 😛 )
There are three credit cards in the house, and they are all MasterCards
Strike Three!
Paki – There has been suspicious activity on your Visa card. A few minutes ago, there was a $600 transfer to Western Union. That is often a sign of online fraud. Did you make that transfer?
Son – What are the last four digits you have on that card?
……..Click Yerrr Out!

Sorry! The suckers aren’t biting today – and tell your cousin, the Prince of Nigeria, to stop sending us those get-rich-quick emails.

Remember, folks – TANSTAAFL – There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch – and there’s always someone ready to try to take away a lunch that you’ve already paid for.

Be alert!!
We need all the Lerts we can get. 😉

You’ve been selected to receive money – Sure you have

You’ve won a prize – in a contest you don’t remember entering

Buy a ticket for this foreign lottery – they just change your dollars to rials before they steal them

You’ll get a bonus or gift if you buy now – see TANSTAAFL

They aggressively claim that you owe money on your taxes – no civilized country’s tax department would approach you in this way, or demand payment in prepaid iTunes cards 🙄

The phone rings once, then hangs up – if you have call-display, do not call an unfamiliar number back. It will direct you to a pay-per-minute site

They say that you’ve been the victim of a fraud (see above) – they’re just after your banking information

They offer to fix your computer – they will download all your financial information

They’re selling an extended warranty on your car – talk to your dealer, face-to-face, rather than some unknown on the phone

They won’t answer your questions (see above) – don’t let them deflect or refuse. They have all the answers…. until you ask an inconvenient question

They’re collecting for a charity you’ve never heard of – then why would you donate?? Real charities don’t demand your credit card number over the phone.

They threaten to have you arrested – There are laws which prevent governments and organizations – even collection agencies – from doing this. Just hang up

They want personal information, like Social Security numbers – for identity theft and fraud. If they called you, never give it out.

They’re collecting a debt you don’t remember – you have the right to a mailed copy of any claim. Demand one!

They claim to have kidnapped someone you know – Some scammers now use social media to find the names and whereabouts of your friends and family members, and use that information to impersonate kidnappers and demand ransom money. It may sound terrifying, but it’s most often fake. Definitely don’t pay them anything. Instead, contact your friend or relative immediately, and report the call to the FTC/CRTC or the police.

They want you to invest in something – Unless it’s someone you know, they get no dough!

They just want to confirm your debit or credit card number – this is the fastest way to get defrauded

They want you to make an immediate decision – even if it’s something you want, pressure = fraud. Hang up and do your own research.

The call looks like it’s coming from your own phone – hackers claim that they’re from the phone company, and just want you to verify those magic numbers. Don’t do it!

They’re too friendly – It’s nice to talk to nice people….until they steal you blind. Beware of unknown callers who seem really, Really friendly.

It’s a jungle out there. Keep your eyes on your fries – and your wallet, and online data. 😳

Flash Fiction #134

PHOTO PROMPT © Claire Sheldon

TANSTAAFL – Urban Myth

Save all your pop-can tabs. Someone will donate a power wheelchair.

Mr. Cynicism said, “Who? Why?”

Like a child’s paper-clip necklace, I pulled it apart, one link at a time. Daughter said, “Mom told me.  Didn’t she mention it to you?”  The wife named a sister. That sister blamed an older sister. She said the yenta was a bowling team member.

Bowler identified a man in her trailer park.  “He’s got his; we’re trying for another.”  Wheelchair man nailed them, upside down, to slabs of plywood, and sold them to supplement his meager disability allowance.  “They’re great muddy shoe scrapers.”

***

TANSTAAFL is a term credited to the author, Robert A. Heinlein. It cynically/realistically means, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

The trailer park man’s wheelchair was not donated.  It had been supplied by the government. He was not aware of any group giving away free wheelchairs.  Pop-can tabs are pure aluminum.  There was a group who collected entire aluminum cans, crushed them and turned them in for rebate at the scrap dealer.  The money was added to a fund which aided handicapped people.

BELIEF is when Hope is substituted for Facts.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

2017 A To Z Challenge – C

In mining other people’s prompts for this post, I dug up a lot of other options but, for the letter

it all came down to one choice. I have to write about CANADA!

This is Canada’s sesquicentennial. That’s just a sesquipedalian word that means we’re 150 years old this year.  We’ve been at this ‘country’ thing for a century and a half.  The Government is so thrilled that it directed the Bank of Canada to issue a new, commemorative $10 bill, which features people and places that even Canadians have never heard of.

The US gained its freedom by revolting, a definition still agreed on by much of the world. Canada became independent by asking nicely.

50 years ago, we celebrated our Centennial. I should apologise to the rest of the world, especially the Americans, for Pamela Anderson.  She was declared Canada’s Official Centennial Baby, being born the soonest after the stroke of midnight that began July 1-1967, CANADA Day.

The problem was that she was born out on the Left-Coast, beautiful-bud, British Columbia. The Centennial was already 5 ½ hours old in Newfoundland and the rest of Canada, by the time it dawned on her.  Continually told throughout her childhood that she was Special, as she grew older she decided to inflict it on prove it to other people, by getting into TV/movies.

The best thing that she ever did for Canada was move to California, where she became the bulbous Baywatch bitch. After that was cancelled, she became a born-again vegetarian, and endured a lackluster career of dressing up in lettuce leaves and shoving her boobs and her unfounded, ill-considered opinions into other people’s faces.

The wife and I got married as a Centennial project. We were going to leave it until the next year, but saw little reason to wait, so we moved the date up to Dec. 2 – 1967.  We almost caused an evil-minded, judgemental, Catholic sister-in-law to wear out her fingers, counting the months till the birth of our first child.  The daughter fooled her, and saved her fingers, by being born 10 months and 1 day after our wedding.

When we got married, both we and Canada were filled with naive optimism. For proof, you can click on the YouTube link to see and hear.  The French have the stirring, martial, Le Marseillais.  The Americans have the patriotic Star-Spangled Banner, with bombs bursting in air.  We have Canada’s Centennial Song. One little, two little, three Canadians – Weeee love you. Now we are twenty million. That was then.  Now, 50 years later, we are 33 million – perhaps 34 million, if you count the illegal immigrants being welcomed with open arms by the RCMP, as they leak across the border into Manitoba and Quebec, trying to get away from Trumpetopia.

As the wife and I near our 50^th wedding anniversary, both we, and the country, are older if no wiser.  Both have become harder and more cynical, especially now as we endure a Care-Bear, second-generation Prime Minister who is spending the country’s, and our children’s, financial future on frivolous, feel-good, social-engineering plots.  When he visits Donald Trump, he’s on his knees, and not to pray.

This too shall pass! We are tough.  We will prevail.  You can tan my hide and make work boots out of me.

Please use your boots to walk back over here in a couple of weeks, to see what indignities I inflict on poor, unsuspecting Letter D.   😯

A To Z Challenge – Q

Be vewwy, vewwy quiet.  I’m stalking shelves.  😯

I think, basically, that most of my life could be defined by the word ‘Question.’ not,

Verb (used with object)
1: to ask (someone) a question; ask questions of; interrogate. 
2: to ask or inquire.

although there was a lot of that going on, too. I was a curious child, in more ways than one.

Why is the sky blue? How high is up?  How long is a piece of string?  How far can you run into the forest?  Only half way! After that, you are running out.

I don’t know what made me an unbeliever. I was raising and selling cynicism at a profit, when I was as young as 5 and 6-years-old.  For me, ‘Question’ was always more,

3: to make a question of; doubt:
He questioned her sincerity.

4: to challenge or dispute:
She questioned the judge’s authority in the case.

5: a point at issue
a difficulty or uncertainty 

I ‘questioned’ almost every assertion – parents, preachers, politicians, teachers – usually silently, internally at least, until they’d been verified, but….doubt, doubt, doubt. See above: I am uncertain.  I have difficulty blindly accepting the point at issue. 

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that without proof! I can’t possibly believe that you believe it.

Once, in the arrogance of my youth, (You know, just after I turned 40, had my mid-life crisis, and bought my first motorcycle) I even thought that I was qualified to teach a course at one of the local Universities on ‘How To Think: 101.’  All I had to do, was train these fresh-faced, gullible impressionable young minds to “Question Everything.”  “Here’s your diploma. Thanx for the tuition.”

As I grew older and grumpier wiser, it wasn’t long before I finally realized that most of the flock of sheeple, refuse to question anything.  They want their lives easy and uncomplicated.  They want to be told what to do, how and when.  They want to be told what to believe, and they don’t want to go to the trouble of thinking about it themselves.  They don’t even want to question the obvious contradictions.

It is the failure of individuals and whole populations to question, which has brought the world the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Khadafy, Hussein and bin Laden.  Now, the only question that the public seems to have is, “How could such a thing have happened?”

My question is, how many more letters are there, and when will this all end?

There are 9 more letters in the alphabet and, if I schedule my posts correctly, the last will be published near the end of April, 2017, just in time to start a new series. Stop back in a couple of weeks to see if I write about Rock And Roll, or Retirement.

😆