Bill Gates: Philanthropist or Monopolist Tyrant?

OK, peeps, I know I have said all this before, but I wish to condense it into one line, after explaining to you the frustration the FFM experienced with his laptop not recognizing his camera was plugged in and ready to download last night (while we sat in a Super 8 room in Green River, UT- a nice Super 8, btw) on the one real break we get in a year... and myself reminded of my own laptop sitting at home on the kitchen table with a brand new hard drive and OS but still not recognizing the internet card even though I used it every day pretty much before the hard drive crashed (when the laptop itself was just over a year old- hellelujah, it last past the average 11 months.)

So, the FFM just came back in the room with an English muffin, which he dropped on the floor, and a cup of typical weak motel coffee, and is sitting in bed now asking me, "Who are you writing about?" to which I answer, "That bastard Bill Gates," and he asks, "Why?" WHY?

I would like to place the blame for these kinds of computer ills squarely on Bill Gates's shoulders. Who created and perpetuated the twisted profit-sucking operation that keeps us all buying new crap all the time because the old crap dies (or because the old stuff that worked perfectly fine is now considered obsolete and won't do things it used to do because something else externally has been changed to make that happen), that keeps us from making choices to buy, keep and use a computer for an extended period of time?

Bill Gates. Philanthropist only because he has made how much money off that business plan and has shiteloads to spare, unlike the general public that is under his spell.

How to Deal with Cheating?

OK, I honestly don't get it: The ads for courses to help you heal from the heartbreak of someone cheating on you. What's wrong with just giving the jerk the finger and walking away?

I just had to say that.

Oh, and BILL GATES IS STILL A FAUX PHILANTHROPIST. Speaking of CHEATING.

I'm Scared!

I am sharing a room in Denver with three other girls, from Idaho, I've never met. I feel like I'm in high school or something. I miss the FFM already, and even Catsy.

So, peeps, that said, I will have sporadic internet access, at best, for the next few days, at one or the other hotels because Bill Gates is still a twit and my laptop hard drive is still dead- actually, they both are- and the laptop the department loaned me doesn't even have a wireless card, it's so old. That'll be left behind.

Here I go... into the unknown...

Weigh in on the Scales of Justice

First frustration of the day: The Wyoming State legislature is considering passing a law that would consider a person who refused a breathalyzer test guilty of drunk driving.

OK, peeps, I understand those of you who have weighed in on the "don't drink and drive if you don't want to face the penalty," and "give our police officers all the tools we can to keep drunks off the road" and the "people die because of drunk driving and those who have been affected want drunks put away" messages.

But, you are missing my main point: This country is one in which the justice system presumes innocence until guilt is proven. Sure, if you commit a crime, you are guilty. But we don't automatically lock you up or kill you or whatever unless you are proven guilty. We all know this doesn't always work, right? That innocent people have been locked up for life, or killed, for crimes they did not, in fact, commit. Still, presumably we give a person a fair shake.

So, technically speaking, to me it seems that if a person says "no" to a breathalyzer, that person is not necessarily pleading guilty. Nor should that person be assumed guilty. That tool that could help the cops get a drunk off the road is not necessarily accurate. And although someone in this state has noted that the breathalyzer has yet to be shown to be inaccurate, that may be true in this state, but there are places in which the machine has, in fact, been proved inaccurate.

I also recognize that Wyoming is one of a few states that do not yet have on the books the law that says you are as guilty if you refuse as if you fail. None of this alters the fact that machines do not always work, nor does it alter the fact that in this country one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, yet refusing a breathalyzer, FOR ANY REASON, in the future in this state, and currently in several other states, can be used as an admission of guilt.

Boo hiss, guys. I could refuse a breathalyzer test out of the sheer pissed-offedness at being pulled over for speeding, the officer smelling alcohol on my breath because I had a beer with lunch two hours ago, and deciding because I was driving over the speed limit and have the scent on my breath, I am drunk. Come on!

With all due respect to Tim, my friend former cop who busted me for my stance earlier today on Facebook, there are officers out there who are not as goodhearted as he is. Really! Believe it? I've experienced this fact on occasion. But, to put the good cop- bad cop argument to rest, I have also experienced the kindness and helpfulness and humaneness of local, county and state law enforcement. So, for all you cop-haters out there, that's not the argument. They are people, just like the rest of us, prone to good days and bad days, and with the same human frailties we all have, which sometimes include giving someone a hard time who doesn't deserve it, just because we are in a bad mood.

I'm going to leave the subject of the breathalyzer now because there is ample room for debate on this one. I know my stance, and I have made it clear, I think. Lemme know if not, OK? If you've got this far.

Here is the next frustration over the concept of justice and human rights that I have had in the last 24 hours: Last night I read a blurb in TIME mag, and followed up today, about a French ban on the burka for Muslim women. French President Sarkozy supports such a ban, claiming the burka is not welcome in a society that values sexual equality.

What equality is that? If a lady wishes to wear a burka so she doesn't feel naked, as one Muslim woman claimed would be the effect of such a ban, then why can't she? What's really going on here? Where is respect for a person's preferred mode of dress? And I realize I step out on a limb here, because the counter to this question could be, "Is it OK, then, for a 20-year-old man to wear his goddam pants down around his knees so we can all see his plaid boxers? "OK?" OK, while I can't count the times I've told one of my students to haul his britches up so I wouldn't have to look at his underwear, technically speaking, I could look the other way, right?

On that note, my last comment for the day- I'm on a tear- is that I also read all these complaints in TIME's letters about how the aging generation can't find decent young people to hire and that "kids these days" are slackers without any respect for real work. Well, you dumb shites, who brought them up- or, I'm sorry, DIDN'T bring them up- to lack fundamental respect for people and work and the world. What the hell do you think they're trying to say? Duh.

I have to get off here and back to work before I blow a fuse. Before I leave, though, I love when people weigh in. Please do.

BTW, I totally missed my chance to yap with Bill Gates yesterday. Huh

Big Day!

Bill Gates is will be interviewed on Talk of the Nation today. Do you think I will get a chance to talk to him? He's going to talk about Haiti, among other gl0bal issues. Shite, he is The Man to talk about Haiti. He knows exactly what it's like to be there, I'm sure, or to have lived in the type of conditions as the people there.

I hope to get a chance to get on the air just to praise him for his philanthropic ideals because I have absolutely no beef with the measures he employs to maintain his virtual monopoly in a realm of technology on which we all in the "developed" world are essentially reliant in order to conduct ourselves day-to-day. I want to have a chance to tell Mr. Gates how much I admire his facade.

And WalMart has decided to cut thousands of employees in order to outsource their demonstration services and increase sales. You know, rather than training those workers they presently employ to do a great job so they can keep their positions. Smart thinking. I imagine all those people who are canned will find another job right away so they can go to Sam's Club and buy from their replacements.

Wal-Mart outsources sampling, cuts 11,200 Sam's Club jobs

By Associated Press

Monday, January 25, 2010

NEW YORK -- Wal-Mart Stores said Sunday that it is cutting about 11,200 jobs at its Sam's Club warehouse division as it outsources in-store product sampling to the marketing company Shopper Events.

The terminations represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator's 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. About 10,000 members of the demonstration department, most part-time workers, were let go. The company also cut its new "business membership representative" positions, affecting about two staffers per store, or about 1,200 staffers in total.

Employees were told the news at meetings Sunday morning.

More at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR2010012402753.html

11 months

OK, peeps, so now we are a 4-computer household with 1 operational computer. Did you know that the average life span of a computer these days is 11 months? That's right; most of us can expect to have to go out and purchase a new computer about a year down the road. It's like mobile phones. How many of you have actually had a cell phone that worked until your contract was ready for renewal so you could get a "deal?"

So, next time you read in TIME or Newsweek or some other magazine, or see on TV how wonderful Bill Gates is to give away money to good causes, ask yourself this: If I didn't have to by a new computer or some gimmicky 'upgrade' as often as I do, could I actually afford to give more money to causes I personally support?"

Shite, you know the answer already.

Bing Sucks

That's all I have to say today because I can't access online Amanda Ripley's Viewpoint piece "Please Remain Standing," from last week's TIME Magazine. It was brilliant, and I don't know how anyone could disagree with her perspective.

And it's not Bing's fault the article isn't available online right now. It's Bing's fault that whenever a person wants to do a search and that is the default search engine, one is forced to scroll through myriad advertisements for things to buy before getting to the subject.

Blech. Bill Gates, did Santa pee in your stocking at Christmas? Tell me, tell me!

Japan: Not just for Wabi-Sabi and Sushi

Goooo, Japan. May you ride high on the technology enabled you by our sweet financial aid after we dropped those pesky bombs.

Charitable New Year

OK, peeps, it was a rough year, and that's why even though the top 10 philanthropists in 2009- including Bill and Melinda Gates- gave two-thirds less this year (in toto) than in 2008. Poor babies.

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=122093340&m=122093325

Dear Barclays Bank,

I'm pleased to have this opportunity at last to write you, since I have the flu and am otherwise incapacitated.

I have been wanting to find time to do this for quite a while. In fact, since this summer, when I sent you two checks in the same envelope in payment on my credit card account, and only one was applied to my balance, resulting in a fee for not having paid the minimum owed, and subsequently, an exhorbitant raise in my interest rate.

You see, I had in fact paid well over the minimum amount due, via the two checks. Yet when I called to have the matter cleared, I was told BY A PERSON on the phone, that the computer cannot read more than one check from an envelope. Amazing. A machine can't do a humans job.

Well, I did a human's task in asking the person who had written me the check that was lost by the computer, to write me a new check in the same amount. This, of course, resulted in that person having to consider whether or not to make a "stop payment" on his account, which might result in a fee by his bank BECAUSE A COMPUTER AT BARCLAYS WAS GIVEN THE TASK OF ACCEPTING AND CREDITING PAYMENTS ON ACCOUNTS, BUT THAT COMPUTER WAS NOT CAPABLE, APPARENTLY, OF BEING ABLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN ONE AND TWO CHECKS IN AN ENVELOPE.

This is fine; I perhaps must accept the FFM's admonition that I am the only person in the world who still signs checks that are written over to me to other parties in payment I owe them, and that I should be prepared when such things happen as happened between me and Barclays Bank.

Here is the part I am still having difficulty swallowing: When I spoke to A PERSON on the phone at Barclays and was told the computer is not able to carry out a human type task of being able to tell that there are two checks, and not just one, in an envelope, that same PERSON told me that she, THE PERSON, COULD NOT CARRY OUT A HUMAN FUNCTION OF RECTIFYING THE ILL CAUSED BY THE COMPUTER AND SETTING MY INTEREST RATE BACK TO A REASONABLE RATE. Do you know why? Because it is AN ELECTRONIC SYSTEM, AND ONLY COMPUTERS CAN DO THAT TASK, AND THE COMPUTER IS NOT ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM IT CAUSED AND TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION BY ADJUSTING THE INTEREST RATE. Yes, that is what your employee told me- the HUMAN employee.

So, I ask, why is it that THE COMPUTER CAN INCREASE AN INTEREST RATE WHEN IT MAKES A MISTAKE, BUT IT CANNOT SUBSEQUENTLY DECREASE AN INTEREST RATE IT HAS INCREASED because of its own inability to distinguish two checks in an envelope and apply payment accordingly to my account. And further, why is it that A HUMAN, WHO COULD COUNT TWO CHECKS UPON REMOVING THEM FROM AN ENVELOPE COULD NOT DECREASE AN INTEREST RATE MISTAKENLY INCREASED BY A COMPUTER?

I would like you to know, Barclays, two additional pertinent points to this case:

1) I have not had the same problem with other banks or companies. THEIR COMPUTERS CAN COUNT MORE THAN ONE CHECK IN AN ENVELOPE AND APPLY PAYMENT ACCORDINGLY.

2) I am not the only person who has had problems with Barclays computer and human personnel. I know people who have had store accounts: ie. LLBean and now refuse to use them because BARCLAYS PERSONNEL, COMPUTER OR HUMAN, CANNOT, OR WILL NOT, UNDERTAKE RESPONSIBLE ACCOUNTING. No, I am not even talking about cheating people to the point of running a bank into the ground so the public is obliged to bail its stinking remains out. I am talking about, for example, a friend who kept receiving notices he had not paid the minimum due, and receiving attendant fees for the discretion, when in fact, he had NOT paid the minimum due, but had paid MORE. And this happened for more than one month consecutively, until he finally got sick of yelling at the human employees at Barclay's and cut up his card and mailed it back.

This is not the only instance I can deliver, beyond my own situation, of Barclays Bank doing bad business, but I feel like I am going to throw up- whether because of the flu or the sour taste Barclays Bank give me- so I will wind it up for now, except to say,

I hope Santa pees in all your stockings, too, this Christmas, just as soon as he is done with B.Gates and before he pees in the stockings of the little jerkoffs who commit day-to-day rude acts.

Most sincerely,
Lisa Cox

Quick Question

OK, peeps, answer me this, that I will put out there before heading into my final final for the semester:

Why is it that Apple computers, Macs, whatever they were and are now, are no longer the choice for educational institutions? I mean, I wonder, because as a battle-scarred veteran educator, I learned and taught on Apples/Macs. But now I am sitting here in the library at school printing out a paper and thinking, I am working on a B.GatesBSMachine. Why?

Sure, those cat-tastically named (as the FFM discovered in recently researching options beyond the B.GatesBSMachine) are expensive, when the price list is set next to the other crap brand (or Dog, as the Fabo Fwamer so appropriately noted.) But, as the Fabo Fwamer also aptly mentioned, one does get what one pays for.

Did our educational leadership sell out to B.Gates like they did to the Business-Exec-Cum-University-Prez jerks?

Bill Gates is a farce.

It's been an insane week, with about 3 days and 20 hours of work on major papers disappearing, the associated migraine from hell, and... well, that's enough. Let's just say I'll be glad when a week from now I'm cruising the aquarium in downtown Denver and relaxing.

But, since I inadvertently arrived here when I meant to hit the link for the university library (both sites offering comparable amounts of knowledge and wisdom, of course), I'll just put this out there, not that you haven't heard it before:

Bill Gates is a farce. He ought to be ashamed of hiding behind a mask of philanthropy while entrapping those of us who willingly or by forced marched into the modern era of computer technology. Shame on you, Bill Gates. I hope Santa pisses in your stocking this year.

In Case I Haven't Been Clear in the Past

Bill Gates, you are a fraud. I hope you have a crappy Thanksgiving.

For Which I am Thankful

Last night while unpacking more stuff in the basement, I ran across some writing I had done about... 3 years ago? It was good. Really. But I wouldn't ever take it anywhere. Story of my life.

How easy it is to complain. A couple weeks ago, or last weekend...? we went to Nu2U and I bought a bunch of clothes, including a brand new pair of Gramicci pants, tags still attached. And I yiped because I thought the cashier overcharged me on some item, when I saw the total. The FFM chastised me for not being thankful for the fact I had just paid about a quarter of what I would have paid for those pants retail (or what someone would have paid) and got more than just the pants. He was right, of course.

Depression is weird. Complacency is weird. They creep up, really, when a person isn't aware, and then suddenly- bang! There you are, depressed and complacent. The two go hand-in-hand for me. Stagnant life. Meds just kill the ability to feel it as quickly or acutely as one might otherwise. To some of us, that's the danger. Is this really me? Or some automaton, a walking zombie under
the spell of lifelessness?

So, I have been keenly aware of opportunities to be grateful very recently. For example, every morning when I wake up and can play fishing with the cat without worrying that our footsteps will bother someone downstairs.

And today I decided rather than bitch about Bill Gates and Microsoft (because already I have harped multiple times about how he uses his philanthropic gestures as a smokescreen for the ultimate power and control he exerts over those of us who are tied to computers), to put the word out abouta company that I haven't felt have screwed with me lately.

PRICELINE.com. I have used Priceline for travel arrangements for several years, and though I have tried other companies, I still like Priceline best. You can name your own price if you have the leisure to do so, and come up with some pretty sweet deals. I have secured rooms in 4-star hotels in downtown Denver for 60 bucks a night, for instance. And for the first time, this weekend I placed an order and got the wrong itinerary. Anticipating a row, because that's what one expects from company representatives anymore, since no one seems to really want to accommodate the price-paying customer these days, and because depression will creep in and make one pessimistic and bitter, I called Priceline. And I had a pleasant conversation with the man on the other end of the line, in which he immediately cancelled the wrong plans and refunded my money. I did have to go online to rebook, but that took all of 10 minutes. And I saved a little bit of cash the second time around.

I like PRICELINE.COM. Hells, just opening up and looking at the pic of a puffy William Shatner pointing out the way to the best deal? That alone makes it worth the trip.

So, there it is, a gratis ad for a company I appreciate. I'm easy like Sunday morning.

Whose Conspiracy?

OK, so yesterday I am doing the dishes from the weekend, and suddenly I hear a "crack" in the pan and feel an intense sharp pain in my finger; my Aubergine House mug handle has broken off the cup and stabbed me in the right middle finger and sliced a huge gaping wound with blood and flesh pouring out. Those of you who know me will understand the gravity, as I am sitting at the table now, Wednesday morning, still not having been able to finish washing dishes leftover from the weekend. Tragic. The top of my finger is protuding from two bandaids like a hot cocktail sausage. I don't dare to take the bandages off because last night after Gift Reject Potluck when I did that to try to clean the wound up a little, the dark red liquid that normally resides in my body began spewing out again immediately, and water on the fresh flesh made me scream and feel like fainting.

Am I overreacting here? I'm the one in pain- emotional and physical; let me decide. Really, who doesn't want me to be in Aubergine House in 2012- or 2016 if Mr. Obama makes it two terms? Is it the Japanese people who made the mug? Did my VP candidate, who sent the mug, betray me? Did some Laramie Republican sneak into my house and make a little crack that would easily break as soon as the mug hit the dishwater and contacted my finger? Or some Laramie Democrat, even? (Because Laramie is one of the few places in Wyoming that actually has Democrats for residents, in any number, or who dare to vocalize. For crying out loud; this state produced a worse showing for Obama than even Utah, proportionally.)

So, you see how this issue is overriding my joy at how easy it was, once I got word, to register for classes and sign off on financial matters yesterday afternoon, and how lacking in trauma it was for me to accept the words of Lord Tim MacFlesh Renter when he told me to suck it up and get XP for my laptop because Vista really does indeed suck as far as compatibility with hard drives. (RobRohrTM, I don't know what system you've got set up there, but you are the only person I know who has touted the value of that nasty software, and I doubt Ray Ozzie's plans to reinvigorate Microsoft and redeem the company with those of us who want Bill Gates to go down in flames- not real flames, but the proverbial ones, of course.)

Who knows? Maybe the QLink my sister sent me really is working its charms and making me mellower than usual. Often after the FFM leaves at an ungodly hour in the morning, I stay awake thinking. It's normal; that's a time I generally wake up anyway, whether or not he is getting up to go to work. So, this morning I lay there listening to the wind gather and explode in insanely powerful gusts outside, like massive swells on the ocean breaking and crashing on rocks, and I wondered what forces really are at work producing these insufferably windy winters we've had for a couple years now, and why Israelis and Palestinians won't just get along and live together. (Don't think I'm being naive here; this is a subject I've considered long and hard from several angles, including biblically, historically and politically, unlike people like, say Bush and his team did in Iraq. The bottom line is that there isn't a whole lot of humanity exuding itself over there, huh?) And whether I could remember to contact people at SER about my interdisciplinary PhD idea today, or whether I will even be able to perform in three hard sciences classes at once. But I wasn't worried.

And then I started thinking, like I have been lately, that sometimes when life is rolling along so easily, as it is presently for me, people ought to wonder when the next big trouble will assault them from behind, in the back of the head with a sharp hatchet. Or maybe not.

Here's some cool stuff from Orion mag. It's an article and slide show called "Human/Nature." Sometimes I think Orion goes too far with the sentimentality vs. the action, but occasionally there's a gem in there.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4252/
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4322/

Whattaya think?

Oh, My God?

Before I get started, check out this sweet colorful street art from Apex in San Francisco, provided by the ever-reliable Fatcap at Fatcap.com:

I'm slow getting around to this today. Scutabaga, my laptop by Acer, with Windows Vista, has completely stopped working. I have owned it for four months and have returned it to the company for repairs twice. I have been informed in messages on the computer over the past couple days that there is a software and a hardware problem.

On to today's real problem, the one that makes me want to do more than scream, that makes me want to shake people by the collars and punch them in the head with my jacknife (and I consider myself pretty much a pacifist who doesn't like conflict, particularly): Listening to Morning Edition on NPR this morning, I heard a man say that he doesn't care if the country goes broke, that what is important to him in voting is the issue of gay marriage; that if this country pays attention to morals, then God will take care of us.

K, people, I am going to break it down for you here, the Ten Commandments, the moral imperatives purportedly handed to Moses by that God guy of whom this man spoke:

1. I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself an idol.

3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.

4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

5. Honor your father and mother.

6. You shall not murder. (The Roman Catholic Church, I have read, uses the word "kill", instead of "murder.")

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal. (Apparently some Jewish sources reference kidnapping here.)

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; ou shall not covet your neighbor's wife.

See on this list where thou shalt not marry a person of the same gender? Me neither. I don't know where this man got his glasses. Perhaps the same place as those fancy ones Sarah Palin wears are sold.

See on this list where thou shalt not steal or covet thy neighbor's house? Me too. Apparently plenty of other people forgot those morals. I hope that man who spoke on the radio this morning, and everybody who holds the same morals he does, lose every single job and every single penny they have so that they will have something real to worry about instead of shoving their proposed Godly morals down my throat, which is really sore right now as it is, from screaming about thieves like Bill Gates, the fraudulent Big Brother of the software industry who holds us all under his command while he goes off on his self-righteous jihad against the ravaging diseases in Africa. Chicaner.

And I won't even get started on the separation of church and state thing. I have to go to work. Thank the Big Guy Upstairs I still have a job for now. Whew. And imagine Him taking care of a woman who thinks anyone should be able to marry anyone he or she loves enough to commit to at that sacred a level, regardless of gender!

Breaking Campaign News!

Everyone, I woke up this morning and made a major decision: to suspend my campaign for President of the United States of America for election year 2008, to endorse Barack Obama, and to focus my attention on a new and pressing campaign: against Big Brother Bill Gates. (But, if you wish, you may still VOTE FOR ME on November 4.)

After many long conversations with some pretty cool people at Acer (and one guy yesterday who- I'm sorry, peeps, but I could not understand him with that accent- in the process of transferring me to the "main office," cut me off), and two trips for Scutabaga to the clinic in Texas, it has become glaringly apparent that the malfunctioning laptop with which I am unable to connect to the wireless service on campus where I work and soon will be enrolled again in school is not the fault of Acer, but entirely of Microsoft. I used to be able to get service at the prep station. Then, one night at 3AM, during a routine updating, the lights on my computer flashed on where it sat on the table, waking me from sleep in the bedroom. Something had happened to a wireless driver, and since then, I have not been able to get a wireless connection with the university.

During one call to Acer, I was referred to the Microsoft website to put Scutabaga through a 7-step program to make Vista compatible with wireless networks I could not access, but I found that the last file in step 2 was not present in my software. When I chatted this to the Microsoft employee with whom I was dealing, I was told that he couldn't help me, to return to Acer; they were the culprit. (People, does that make sense to you, that the maker of the software would refer me to the maker of the hardware for a problem with the software they made? Do these people think we are all stoopid?)

The hardware is working; the wireless card is working. Windows Vista is a piece of crap which I have not heard one person say he or she likes. It is full of holes, and Bill Gates does not care. He will fill you all with visions of his philanthropical ways, out there in the world attempting to thwart evil diseases in Africa, for instance, but in the meantime, his software empire has us all crushed under his not-so-microSoft thumb.

Do not be fooled by this man! He monopolizes the PC industry with savage and underhanded tricks. Wow, that sounds pretty serious, doesn't it? Well, I am serious. You want specifics? I have to take a shower and go to work now, but don't you worry: I am on this and will keep plugging away.

The only way I can see that Bill Gates can redeem himself in my eyes is to provide me with a scholarship to return to school in January as an underrepresented (female) student in the sciences, in a program which I intend to use to become educated so that I can make some kind of a difference out there restoring lands that have been ravaged by the extractive industries. Now, how's that for doing some good? Bill, are you listening? It'll hardly cost you a dime, compared with all the cash you've racked up over the years with us as your technologically captive high-paying audience. I think we can strike a sweet deal that will benefit this world and the American people. Whattaya think?