I know most goats readers are less than thrilled with the way G.W. has been running the country. I think everyone will have to agree, though, that the Do Not Call [donotcall.gov] list is one of his better accomplishments. Sign up today, and be among the first (in October) to be rid of 80% of telemarketers! Unfortunately, it's running a little slow, as it just opened today. Keep with it, I believe this will be worth while, or, it will just be a way to get an email address so someone else can spam us in another way.

Thanks for the link. You saved me 5 minutes from reading the news and/or doing an ixquick [ixquick.com] search for it.

We've had that in Indiana here for a year or more. It's VERY nice. It's amazing how you notice the drop in telemarketers almost immediatly.

However, it just seems like there might be an economic backlash from this. Where will college students make money to buy beer now? Dubya's daughters will just have to go back to whoring for their spending cash i guess...

Yeah, this definetly makes up for needless wars, the lack of Iraqi WMDs, and the American soldiers who are stuck in Iraq, being killed daily.

I mean, now I don't have to worry about telemarketers. I only hope that the newly freed Iraqi people will have such great luxuries someday too. At least, the ones who haven't had their phones stolen.

In Response to Evander (#6911):

I believe what we are seeing is the core of Dubya's presidential strategy. This is how i've seen his presidency:

pre-9/11 - bad economy in the future... dubya's not looking so good

9/11 - america in shock

war in afghanistan - economy will be fine, we'll just go over, round up some bad guys, catch bin ladin and rouse up some jobs for the poor folk (we are all poor to dubya)

post-afghanistan - hmmm, osama is VERY good at hiding... but we will catch him. we got his bad guys... see, they are VERY bad

post-post-afghanistan - maybe osama died. those tapes are probably fake. Lots and lots of people losing jobs and not a good stock market and... LOOK, SADDAM IS BEING BAD!!!!

pre-war iraq - saddam wants to kill us and can do it in less than an hour! he has weapons sitting all over! sure, the pictures we show are worse quality than you can see on the internet [terraserver.com], but we KNOW he's VERY evil. he's like hiter too; see, a moustache!!!!

war in iraq - we got saddam (we think) and liberated all the iraqis (who seem to hate us) and made the world safer (lots of terrorists are attacking people) and the US is safe once again (other than all those people who hate us even more now)

post-war iraq - not going to well, maybe there weren't any wmd's. maybe bush lied or was just incompetant. unfortunately we got rid of people we hate... WAIT!!! WE'RE GOING TO GET RID OF TELEMARKETERS!!!!

post-war telemarketing - economy was on a rise, oops, millions of telemarketers lost their jobs, hmmm... didn't see that coming. i mean all we did was shut... down... their... places of employment... oops. (and we still aren't sure if osama and saddam are dead or not)

In Response to AsphaltBuffet (#6930):

But at least my dinner will be uninterrupted.

My dinner of unborn fetuses, TORN FROM THE BELLIES OF THEIR IRAQI MOTHERS!

But it's okay, because Iraqis, like the French, are inherently evil, based solely on their geographical location, and thereore deserve to die.

In Response to Evander (#6932):

No, Bush is not a nice man, never claimed he was however, only that this one thing was a good thing. Obviously, you disagree. I, even in my college years, never worked as a telemarketer, and quite honestly, never would. I'd rather dig a ditch, and I do think this list is a good thing. And when it's friday night, and I've given up on dinner at this point, and for the first time all week have gotten the baby to finally be quite and sleep long enough for me to pop the top on a nice brew and enjoy it, but wait, the phone rings. I grab it quickly so the shrill of the ring doesn't wake my child and cause her to scream relentlessly for yet another week, and behold, it's just some telemarketer wanting me to sign my life away on a timeshare in florida. BS! This list IS a good thing! You want to bitch about bush and the war, that's fine. I have too, but in the proper topic.

So what do you all think?

Is there a difference between phone calls made to solicit money for commercial purposes, and phone calls made to solicit money for social/political purposes?

In otherwords, is it any better to get a phone call from the Sierra Club or the 700 Club than it is to get one offering a free(except for travel, lodging, meals, and processing fees) trip to Florida to examine an important real estate opportunity?

In Response to zamphir (#6954):

Nah, they're all crap. I'm willing to take what I can get though.

In Response to coolhand (#6956):

I'm willing to take what I can get though

Remind me not to turn my back on you if we ever meet...

Or bend over.

>:-)

In Response to coolhand (#6952):

I think the list is a good thing but it seems like they are kind of sidestepping the issue of all those jobs that are going to be lost. Yes, they are shitty horrible jobs, but there might be a result from this that we haven't really looked at.

Everyone is saying yay! no more phone calls! but they aren't paying any attention to the other side of the story. Plus, telemarketers are good for relieving stress at the end of my day. "No, i'm sorry but she ran off with her lover last week and left me with the kids." HAH HA HA HA

The only "telemarketing" i ever did wasn't technically so. I did phone surveys on people who'd purchased a Volkswagen or audi vehicle. We just called and talked to them about their purchase and what they thought and asked them a few questions. I found that the people i called were MUCH more ready to answer the questions when i was pleasant and "cared" about their time during the survey.

It's amazing to me the attitudes of the people calling me to try to sell something. I would never buy something from a salesman who sounded like he/she was reading from a card, couldn't pronounce my name (even after i corrected them) and sounded like they'd rather bend over around coolhand than have to talk to me, the potential buyer. I think that the backlash against telemarketers wouldn't be so great if they showed courtesy once in a while.

And here are a couple hints. If you tell them never to call you back and they do, that's a federal offense right now without the list. If they call after 9pm, that's their fault, they aren't supposed to do that. They are probably calling from somewhere further east and don't know what time it is where you are. And if they comment that their computer is acting really slow, that probably means they are being live audited and their boss is listening in on the conversation and they can get in big trouble if they mess stuff up :) heheheheh

In Response to AsphaltBuffet (#6969):

Actually, If I just recently bought a volkswagen or audi, I'd kinda expect to recieve a phone call from the dealership regarding after-sales service. That's really not telemarketing at all, and I think it to be a good thing, especially since it is not to 'hard sell' but instead to ensure satisfaction of previous sales.

This would only be the case, of course, if I had given the dealership my phone number for this purpose in the first place.

The problem that I have with telemarketers is from my credit card companies. I gave them my phone number in case something happens like wierd charges start showing up (which has happened before,) and since that was before you were given the option to opt out of telemarketing, I'm constantly getting calls from them.

I've said not to call, signed up to opt out through the credit card companies themselves, but it seems that their third party services have my number, and I just can't get off the damn lists; and according to what I've read, credit card companies are exempt from the list. I'm thinking I should sign up anyway, and maybe I'll get lucky.

In Response to jettaboy20 (#6978):

maybe I'll get lucky.

You and coolhand...

In Response to zamphir (#6980):

Married with a new baby, I need all the luck I can get!