So do you think we could stop providing free military services to every country around the world, at least until we get back on our feet?

Most places – including Harrisburg – only ban hand-held cellphones, but it’s not really that much of a deal to drop your phone on the floor. It’s probably not even going to be damaged, and it won’t interfere with your driving. We’ve had people using CB-type radios for half a century, using hand-held press-to-talk microphones, and there’s been no problem with those.

Dropping a hot cup of coffee could result in a scalded crotch – which likely would result in a traffic accident even if nothing else was going on. A Pepsi can dropped on the floor invariably will roll behind a pedal, keeping it from being depressed.

Cells Eliminate OTHER Distractions

Talking on the cell phone means you’ve turned the radio off. If you listen to talk radio, taking a cellphone call is probably much less distracting. And after a couple subtle suggestions applied with a 2×4, the other passengers in your car quickly learn to shut their yap while you’re on the phone, and that is less distracting, too.

If I were a Ford or GM dealer, I'd sure be jumping all over this Toyota thing. It sure qualifies for "Stupid Human Tricks" if anything does.

I'd be running ads on TV and in the paper, pointing out that Toyota has promised to fix this safety issue, but it's going to be the end of next week before your dealer has the parts on hand, because they're sending the first parts to the factories so they can resume production.

We Care About Your Safety

No need to risk your family, I'd point out. You were about ready to trade for a new car anyway, I'd point out. You can be driving one of our new or used cars now and we'll let your old car sit until Toyota is willing to fix it, not selling it to anyone else, so that way you don't have to worry about someone hitting you with your old car.

It's just the kind of thing a good neighbor would do, the ad would point out, and our brand was an established friend to the American families decades before Toyota started selling cars here in 1957.

Long Term Benefits

There’s no federal courthouse in Lancaster at this time, although we’ve been promised one for a long, long, time.

How about using the Lancaster Convention Center as a federal courthouse until the real one is built?

New York Is Afraid

New York finds it inconvenient to hold the trial of accused terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed there, but if the trial were held at the LCC, there would be hundreds or thousands of newsmen, security people coming to Lancaster for the trial.

People who lost friends or family in the fall of the towers might also want to attend the trial in order to stare him in the face, and Lancaster is close enough for them to drive or to take the train or a bus. We're also within driving distance of Washington DC - pretty much in the center of the circle defined by the Towers, Somerset County and the Pentagon.

That wouldn’t help just the Marriott and the Brunswick operate at full capacity, but it’d help fill the rest of the motels and inns in the county, and fill an awful lot of restaurant tables at mealtimes as well.

A Little Bonus For Us

"It's awfully cold out there," Blondie said this morning. "I don't think we want to go anywhere today."

Fine with me. I rarely want to leave the house, anyway. But she kept fretting herself over this and that, and decided that she had to leave for some reason or another, about 10:45. Fifteen minutes later, she phoned me. "You need to move your car, or you'll get a ticket." Within no more than 7 minutes of careful calculations, I determined that the 28th, a Thursday, would be the 4th Thursday of the month. Fardles!

So I got dressed, and headed for the bakery, since I was about out of bread. Then I went to do some other errands. Along the way, I listened to WHP radio.

Enemies Lists, Redux

Glenn Beck was telling us all that Obama was one of them, and when they made up their enemies lists, all of them (including Nixon) had the same people on their enemies lists, including the bankers.