Thursday, December 02, 2010

Army of pots calling a mustard seed 'black'

Army of pots calling a mustard seed 'black'

The Albuquerque news laments that a serial property crimes offender has been arrested for the 127th time. Yet, there is a worse property crimes offender at large- one who violates the property rights of everyone who is forced to interact with one of its representatives- one who makes this freelance parasite look like an amateur by comparison.

The State, what most people are speaking of when they use the word "government", has no rivals where property rights violations are concerned. Either your property is held for ransom, or you are not allowed to use your property as you see fit, or your property is stolen outright by this offender. And it points the finger at this minor player in its own game to distract from the truth. People should stop being fooled.

People should also understand that The State, by its "laws", protects all bad guys, including property rights violators, from facing the realistic consequences of their actions. Consequences that would be sure and swift in a free society.
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Examiner.com- some advice

I long ago gave up on trying to communicate directly to the folks at Examiner.com.  At best, I would get some patronizing dismissal "showing" me why I was wrong and they were right.  Often I just got no response at all.  So I'm going to gamble that they do Google searches to see what people are saying about Examiner.com and will run across this.

First of all, there is an optimal amount of advertising.  You left that in the dust long ago.  My readers have been complaining for months about Examiner having so many ads that they have trouble getting to read the content.  This drives away readers.  But, now your ads are even making it hard for me to post columns.  It's one thing to clog the site with ads, but it's insanity to clog the publishing tool with so many ads and pop-ups that writers can't post easily.  Why have ads on the publishing tool at all? 

I have tried to post a column twice today, only to have the site freeze up due to the flood of ads.  Added to the fact that you got rid of the "auto-save" feature, this means I have to go back and re-write the whole thing (fortunately I have a saved copy), and add all the links back in again.  This is extremely frustrating.

Why did you get rid of useful features while clogging the site with garbage?  You got rid of the auto-save, as I mentioned before, and you got rid of the spell check.  My keyboard tends to skip "h" a lot.  This means I have to copy and paste my article somewhere else to try to catch the skipped letters.  PUT THE SPELL CHECK BACK!

Then there is the money.  You keep cutting back on the pay per page view.  Yes, you added a dollar per published column "up to 5 per week" (as long as I include the word "Albuquerque" in the column somewhere), but the per view pay keeps dwindling.  It evaporates.  It makes it pointless to strive for good content rather than to just post some "Blah blah Albuquerque blah" to get the dollar.  Yet, for my own self-respect I refuse to do that.  I'd rather just walk away from your sandbox and let you use it as your personal kitty box if that's what you want.

It is really getting to the point that the problems are not worth the pittance you pay.  I also feel that the pay situation on your part is dishonest.  Sure you hedge your bets by saying:

...your pay is based on a rating that considers a number of factors, including advertising revenue and the quality of your audience. This includes things like frequency of publishing, subscriptions, page view traffic and session length. Pay may fluctuate depending on any of these and other factors. Examiner.com makes no guarantees as to minimum payment.
Weasel words?  Affirmative!

I am tired of the nonsense.

Flag not 'vandalized', simply upside down

A flag at an Albuquerque McDonald's was rehung "upside down" by persons unknown. It is being called "vandalism" by the wronged party.

Flag not 'vandalized', simply upside down


Trespassing was obviously committed. That was wrong. But "vandalism"? No.

Vandalism involves damaging property. Nothing was damaged in this case except a false "patriotism" that revolves around the worship of the US federal flag.

An upside down flag is a sign of emergency or severe distress. America is definitely in an emergency situation and denial of that fact won't make it go away. It isn't harmful or disrespectful to hang the federal flag upside down, and it certainly doesn't damage the flag.

People would be wise to educate themselves before they start pounding their chests and bellowing about some trivial act "disgracing our country". If you want to see who is truly a disgrace to America, look at the actions of the federal government, not flag rearrangers.