Disturbing activity on Black Friday

[Brian R. VanCise]

People, as a general rule, are stupid. A person can be brilliant but people are stupid. I was recently at an auto parts store that requests your address, phone number when you buy something. It has to do with their warranty program. There was a young lady in front of me that wasn't in their system and gave her name, phone number, address in a conversational tone of voice. She had just requested a part for a specific make and model of vehicle. Had I been a predator it would have been far to easy to find her. I discussed what had happened with the clerk (I've been buying from the guy for years) and he promised he'd begin offering a pad of paper to folks to write down the info from now on. Will he? Probably, but he's not the only guy in the store. What get's me, Georgia, is that when you point stuff like your observation and mine out as not being the smartest thing in the world you often get an odd luck and a dismissive "Oh, you're just paranoid." Frustrating.

Great post Jeff! Now a day's guard your information and be cautious.
No need to take that chance.

 

[MJS]

There we were, my friend and I, shivering and entertaining ourselves people-watching and trading jokes with other chilly souls in line in the wee hours on Black Friday outside Kohl's when we were taken aback at something we hadn't seen before.

Several young men and one young lady showed up trying to register people to vote.

Even more incredibly - people were putting their names and addresses down on official-looking papers hauled by these young people.

I wanted to shout, "No! You can register at the Department of Licensing or a local school at any time - don't give out your physical address to people you don't know at 3:00 in the morning outside of a department store!"

Alas, I held me tongue.

Thoughts?

Yeah, there ya go...give your name and address to a total stranger, who is probably watching you while you shop, seeing what you buy, so they can case your house later on, wait until you're gone and steal everything you just bought. Amazing...how friggin stupid can some people be?

Its kinda like some places that'll call you up and claim they're from a CC company, that you're up for some upgrade, whatever, and they need to verify your SS number or some other personal info. Umm...no...sorry, they should have all of that info. right there in front of them, so the only thing that needs to be verified should be the last few digits, nothing more.

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

In the US, since voting is handled by the state one lives in, voters generally have to go to a designated location to register to vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_registration#United_States

That is how it should be all over.

If you can't get up and go down (or get someone to help you) to a Post Office, a DMV or a Goverment center to register to vote than you should not vote.

So much voter fraud is from outside registrations like ACORN.
No PAC or Party should be involved with voter registration at any level.

 

[Guardian]

There we were, my friend and I, shivering and entertaining ourselves people-watching and trading jokes with other chilly souls in line in the wee hours on Black Friday outside Kohl's when we were taken aback at something we hadn't seen before.

Several young men and one young lady showed up trying to register people to vote.

Even more incredibly - people were putting their names and addresses down on official-looking papers hauled by these young people.

I wanted to shout, "No! You can register at the Department of Licensing or a local school at any time - don't give out your physical address to people you don't know at 3:00 in the morning outside of a department store!"

Alas, I held me tongue.

Thoughts?

Without reading all the replies, may I ask why you held your tongue? I'm just curious is all, not saying you had to start a fight or anything, but any loud outspoken gesture might have cause ripples to take affect and made others speak out also. Just asking here.

 

[Guardian]

Without reading all the replies, may I ask why you held your tongue? I'm just curious is all, not saying you had to start a fight or anything, but any loud outspoken gesture might have cause ripples to take affect and made others speak out also. Just asking here.

Without reading all the replies, may I ask why you held your tongue? I'm just curious is all, not saying you had to start a fight or anything, but any loud outspoken gesture might have cause ripples to take affect and made others speak out also. Just asking here.

Never mind, you answered it in your last post. I still wonder if silence was the best thing here considering.

 

[theletch1]

They didn't seem too aggressive about "getting out the vote" as it were and it's not as though they were trying to capture people as they were either walking in or walking out of the store - these people weren't going anywhere.

Why not address them en masse if the organization was legit?

And frankly, I didn't speak up because I didn't want to be on the news for starting, getting into or ending some sort of confrontation and as theletch1 pointed out, oftentimes when you try to help people they resent the hell out of you for it.

Without reading all the replies, may I ask why you held your tongue? I'm just curious is all, not saying you had to start a fight or anything, but any loud outspoken gesture might have cause ripples to take affect and made others speak out also. Just asking here.

I quoted her reasoning for keeping quiet above my quote of your post. A great many people that hit the Black Friday sales at zero dark thirty are there for the sport of the event and are a bit more 'tweaked' toward, um, hyper-activity. Had she caused a fuss she may well have been the spark that ignited what the rest of us would have been shaking our heads at on the evening news. She had nothing to gain and quite truthfully no responsibilty to those around her to make a fuss. She was there, in the moment, and is a much better judge of the "feel" of the thing. I trust Georgia's instincts in this matter implicitly. It may be that those very ripples that you speak of could have turned to waves and ended in trouble.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Black Friday sounds fun

No, no it isn't... although my wife would not agree

Black Friday

 

[shesulsa]

I love to people-watch and some of the deals offered as the "switch" to the doorbusters bait were actually pretty good ... a couple of years ago. This year ... eh ... not so much. But I did get some good deals on the few things I bought and they were all things on special before 11am. It was a good kickoff to the season. I don't stay out all day, either.

 

[Guardian]

I quoted her reasoning for keeping quiet above my quote of your post. A great many people that hit the Black Friday sales at zero dark thirty are there for the sport of the event and are a bit more 'tweaked' toward, um, hyper-activity. Had she caused a fuss she may well have been the spark that ignited what the rest of us would have been shaking our heads at on the evening news. She had nothing to gain and quite truthfully no responsibilty to those around her to make a fuss. She was there, in the moment, and is a much better judge of the "feel" of the thing. I trust Georgia's instincts in this matter implicitly. It may be that those very ripples that you speak of could have turned to waves and ended in trouble.

No problem, I posted that I see the reasoning just as you were probably typing your reply, so you probably did not see my 2nd comment. I wasn't questioning judgment or anything else as an attack, it was brought forward too this board for thoughts, so I brought forth my view as asked. Your defense of this individual is noted, but unecessary for I was not attacking this individual, but posing a question.

 

[theletch1]

No problem, I posted that I see the reasoning just as you were probably typing your reply, so you probably did not see my 2nd comment. I wasn't questioning judgment or anything else as an attack, it was brought forward too this board for thoughts, so I brought forth my view as asked. Your defense of this individual is noted, but unecessary for I was not attacking this individual, but posing a question.

Didn't think you were. I noted that you stated you hadn't read the whole thread so I thought I'd try to tie up both what had previously been posted as well as my personal thoughts on why Shesulsa reacted the way she did. If I'm wrong I'm sure she'll give me a good beating but I think I'm pretty close to it. Your thoughts are valuable to the board so don't think I'd ever attempt to squash your input. I didn't, in fact, see your second comment as we were, indeed, cross posting. No harm, no foul.

 

[Guardian]

Didn't think you were. I noted that you stated you hadn't read the whole thread so I thought I'd try to tie up both what had previously been posted as well as my personal thoughts on why Shesulsa reacted the way she did. If I'm wrong I'm sure she'll give me a good beating but I think I'm pretty close to it. Your thoughts are valuable to the board so don't think I'd ever attempt to squash your input. I didn't, in fact, see your second comment as we were, indeed, cross posting. No harm, no foul.

LOL, Amen to that.