I fear there is another virus worse than the H1N1 swine flu that is taking over America. It is a virus epidemic that infects the mind and it has now spread out of control.  There is something fundamentally wrong with the thinking in America and much of the West today. It is as if a computer virus has spread to humans and has infected their minds.  Specific examples of the symptoms probably are not being noticed because they are rapidly becoming the norm. The virus seems to hinder the ability to process data; the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience, and to think rationally.  I will mention just a few examples that I was exposed to in the last few weeks so you might identify and isolate the virus yourself if those infected should get anywhere near you.

I have been trying to sell a property in New York State and have just bought  a  property in the state where I am now located. Neither of the closings went well. On this end the closing was delayed for a month because of the stupidity of the title company and on the other end the house sale in New York is being delayed by a dumb mistake by one of the lawyers doing the closing. I will not even talk about the minds of some of the realtors that I have dealt with because it is too late for those that are already brain dead (Debbie your excluded).

We had a well known insurance company insuring the property we just bought here (it is the company that uses an umbrella in its ads). They sent an agent out to look at the property and we were told that everything was fine. A few weeks later they sent out a second agent to look at it again while nobody was here and then sent us a letter telling us they are going to drop our insurance  because the wood siding on our house and outbuilding  needed treating and a old chicken coup roof needed repair (no joke).  We then called the independent insurance broker from whom we obtained the insurance and he told us that he talked to the umbrella company and that they will not drop us if we got the siding treated. Fine, we spent almost three thousand dollars getting the wood treated and then sent them pictures proving the wood siding was taken care of.  We were getting positive feedback from the independent insurance broker but he could not tell us if we would actually have insurance  when the drop date was that day at midnight.  So I told my wife to call the umbrella company directly and when she did the umbrella company phone agent said that we were really dropped because their company does not insure houses that burn wood for heat.  Nevermind, that not one word was ever said about wood heat in the letter that they sent us notifying  us they were dropping us. Nevermind, that the only wood burner is outside and away from the house. Nevermind that the first agent they sent saw nothing wrong,  Nevermind, that my wife originally told them we  partly heating with wood when she signed up with the umbrella company in the first place. Nevermind, that their letter was responsible for us spending $3000 to treat the siding. 

So apparently the letter they sent us about the siding misrepresented why they dropped our insurance. The independent insurance agent we were going through was also either lied to by them or was just making things up as he went along himself. Since I have the proof in writing I might have a mind to sue them for our costs of getting the siding treated. However, I know if you sue one insurance company under the intrusive insurance system in this nation they will freely exchange this data with every other insurance company in the world. You then will not be able to obtain insurance from any other insurance company.

We went to a county court proceedings the other day because a woman in our area has allegedly been ripping off a charity and we wanted to see the outcome of  her arraignment. I guess I sat through 20 or more arraignments before they got to her case. Most of them were for check fraud. I found out something I did not know. Did you know (at least in this county) that if someone pleads guilty to  felony fraud no matter how many counts there are that they will just require the person that pleads guilty to pay restitution to the victims and the court costs? They also get about 3 months to a year probation but after the probation expires nothing about the charge is retained on their record. So next time they defraud someone their prior convictions will not count! That means that as long as these criminals do not get caught again while on probation they will have a clean record forever to go on defrauding people.

Then we wonder why there is so much fraud in America. First these criminals have to get caught, and next the prosecutor has to want to charge them, and then even after they go to the judge he just lets them off by paying restitution, court charges and a little probation. Then in a few months they have a clean record and are free to rip people off all over again knowing that next time they get caught they only will have their wrist slapped again.

My wife had a regional plumbing franchise (named after one of our founding fathers) come out for a flat $45 fee to look at the water line to the refrigerator ice maker and a spray hose on our kitchen sink that was not connected. Most of  the agents time here was spent trying to talk me into a long term contract for all the plumbing in the house. He finally did take a look under the kitchen sink and then he told me that there is no connection for the sink sprayer on the sink so the prior owner probably changed sinks and that is not the original sink. I said there is a connection on that sink and I gave him a flashlight so he could actually at least see it this time. He then looks again and agrees that there is a place on the sink to connect the spray hose.  He then looks in his fee book and tells me that it will be somewhere near $200 to get that working. The agent next looks at the valve for the water line to the refrigerator ice maker and tells me the handle that turns the valve  is stripped so he looks again in his fee book and determines that will cost about $150 to fix.

I had enough and I think he got the message when I loudly called my wife and told her I thought you called someone out here that would fix the problems not quote unreasonable prices to fix what I could fix myself for a couple of bucks. My real beef is that he was already here but he wanted to charge us as if  each problem was a separate service call. Frankly, in the time that he made his sales pitch he could have had both problems fixed and I would be happy to use his service again.  Expecting me to pay $400 for plumbing work that could be fixed in about 30 minutes is nuts, and to me it seems like he is just a member of a predatory service looking for feeble minded suckers. I flushed that plumbing company.

I had a flat on my Hyundai the other day on a dirt rood in the middle of nowhere. Guess what? After you get the lug nuts off and jack up the car with their toy tools, the wheel does not come off no matter how hard you pull on it. My wife had to walk up a hill where she could get cell phone reception to call our mechanic to find out how they get tire wheels off of this Hyundai. We find out that he uses something like a sledge hammer and bangs on the inside of the tire and rim. That was useful information but was not much help with my problem since we do not carry sledge hammers in our trunk. I tried big sticks, rocks, kicking, cursing, etc., to no avail. Finally a logging truck came down the road and the driver had a wrench as big as a sledge hammer and we knocked the tire off. Otherwise it would have been a very long day. The moral of the story is if you are going to buy a Korean Hyundai prepare to use a sledge hammer on it.

We have been doing a lot of visiting of churches in the area trying to find a new church home. I notice that almost all of the Baptist churches in the area have a six foot framed church covenant hanging somewhere where you cannot miss it (I really think those signs fornicate at night and  reproduce themselves). These churches do not hang the ten commandments, mind you, they just hang a huge church covenant that came out of some old hymnal that certain people blow up, frame and hang on a wall for legalistic emphases. This is a  Church Covenant that only makes sense if you speak in King James and expect everyone in your church to go way beyond just keeping all the ten commandments.

One church was actually a top contender for a church home for us until I noticed that big framed church covenant in their lobby and then also found out that their youth minister cannot be ordained or become a deacon in that church because he once had a divorce. Seems they think he cannot be a deacon but he can preach from the pulpit at times and pastor the youth of the church all of the time. I guess the Bible does not say anything specifically about youth ministers so it is fine with them if he pastors their kids but God forbid that he becomes a deacon in their church.  How can people be  that wooden minded in Biblical discernment?

I ran into this issue in my last church as well. There you even had to agree to that church covenant or you could not even become a member and if your wife was divorced before she was even saved and you married her you could never become a deacon. I wonder why members in local churches cannot have the wisdom to discern who is or is not qualified for leadership? Do they have to woodenly use passages that they probably do not even fully understand to determine matters that are meant to be discerned by the local body? Where is the freedom in Christ for the local body to actually determine who is or is not suitable to be their church leaders? Who on earth really knows the spiritual maturity of  people in their congregations better than the people in the congregation and why is one supposed sin of the past the primary rule to disqualify proven people of  integrity today?

Anyway, we could not join the church in our old location without being hypocrites by agreeing to that covenant and I never could get them to change their membership requirements even after attending the church for over a year. In that time, they hired and fired a pastor and I had no vote in the matter. So when we moved here I had already decided that I am not going to keep attending any church where I cannot be a member (without being a hypocrite). So the church search still goes on for us because many Baptists want to display on the wall that they lack freedom to use their own spiritual discernment.

Anyone ever try to change a direct deposit routing with Social Security? Totally nuts! It seemed like I was speaking to a female version of  Hal, in ” 2001 A space Odyssey”.  This Ro-bot (lets just call her Ro) must have asked me about thirty questions most requiring spelling of names or a series of numbers that Ro would repeat back and ask if it was correct. Only thing, Ro was no Hal, Hal understood English pretty good and even though I thought I was talking English to Ro she kept reading back numbers and letters that I never said. This conversation with Ro went on for about a half hour. I still wonder what bank Ro actually will send my direct deposit to since the one thing that Ro never repeated back was the bank routing number. Maybe Ro and Bo (her male counterpart) have their own account for funds with wrong routing numbers and they intend to use it to buy Cray’s as their offspring.

Every time I go into Wal-Mart these days there is something to remind me that prices keep going up even though the government tells us that there is no inflation. Come on.. $4.50 for a twelve pack of soda! twenty dollars for a pair of reading glasses that were just $5 two years ago!  Why are 5 lb packs of water coated chicken wings that once were $4 a few years ago now four lbs and $11? Often the prices stay the same but the packages keep getting smaller. I remember that happening in the days of Jimmy Carter when inflation was running 10 to 20 percent each year but now we are told there is no inflation. So why are most half gallons of ice cream now 48 ounces. Why are 8 ounces of yogurt now 6 ounces? Why are lb packages of candy now 11 ounces? I saw lb packages of lettuce drop to 12 ounces and then 8 ounces in one place, etc ,etc. Do the manufactures really think the American people are so brain dead that they will not notice that they are buying less for the same amount of money? Seems that we are or these rapidly shrinking products would rapidly shrink off the shelves when we refuse to buy these obvious deceptions. Just wait until the value of the dollar drops and all the Chinese produces in Wal-Mart suddenly double.

Believe me there is a lot more I could bring up but I think you get the idea why I think that many minds are infected by a brain virus. I am sure you have your own stories to bring up as fitting examples. You can if you want. Using me and this article as an example does not count.