Higher Search Engine Ranks

I make a living creating higher search engine ranks for my clients. You could always read about how to make your website get higher search engine ranks, and learn over years the way I did, through research, trial, and error. Or, if you're a busy small business owner or executive, maybe you're just looking for someone to hire to make your site come up with higher search engine ranks. Either way, you should check out my new Search Engine Optimization Blog. If you want to learn something, hopefully there will be something there for you. If you're looking to hire someone, you can read my SEO blog to see that I know what I'm talking about.

While I'm on the subject, Blogs can help your site show up higher on the search engines. I have a Blogs for Small Businesses Program that is dedicated to helping small business owners use a blog to attract and retain customers. I run a blog on the subject, Supak Blogs for Business Blogs Blog.

The Birth of Neo-Gonzo:

Bush is really the evil one here and it is more than just him. We are the Nazis in this game and I don't like it. I am embarrassed and I am pissed off. I mean to say something. I think a lot of people in this country agree with me - a lot than that are saying anything...we'll see what happens to me if I get my head cut off next week -- it is always unknown or bushy-haired strangers who commit suicide right afterwards with no witnesses.—Hunter S. Thompson

That's just one of the quotes at my new Hunter S. Thompson Blog, where I've been posting quotes, links, and pictures this week, as we prepare for the event of the century, Hunter S. Thompson's ashes being shot out of a cannon. They'll load it up, packing it with black powder, his ashes, a big wad of paper, and light the fuse, and the agony of the burn, the waiting will drag for an eternity until BANG what's left of the Gonzo poet will mix with fire and smoke and acceleration in the clean, crisp Colorado air, where it will hang for the rest of time.

'Gonzo' Godfather Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself:

"A 1994 essay in Rolling Stone written as an obituary for former President Richard Nixon was typical. At a time when many commentators offered a more generous re-assessment of Nixon's legacy, Thompson called him 'a liar, a quitter and a bastard. A cheap crook and a merciless war criminal.'"

That's why I loved Hunter S. Thompson. One of the toughest mostly-liberal people I've ever read. He was a gun nut, but not against reasonable gun control. He regularly used the word fag, but didn't hate gay people. His tough persona made him a better journalist than any of these quivering tubs of lard who are so scared Bush won't call on them that they won't ask any hard questions.

Thompson was a master at finding the meaning of things through what they were not. His character's famous drug binges in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas helped me realize that one of the reasons HST had such a unique grasp on reality was because he had a strangle-hold on unreality.

"...two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.....also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls...but the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the dephts of an ether binge..."

What shined through for me were the LIBERAL values of not being helpless and irresponsible. This "responsiblity" vein that Thompson often touched on has been stolen by a bunch of fat cat bastards in this country, most of whom never had a day of hard work in thier lives. Thompson rescued the idea of personal responsibility by putting it in the most absurdly irresponsible situations and rescuing it through wit, hard work, and luck.

And finally, perhaps the most fitting quote of the day.

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hunter S. Thompson

7-18-1939 to 2-20-2005

I just found out Hunter S. Thompson killed himself today. With a gun, of course. Ironically, it was a Canadian Press story I saw first.

While I'm pretty sure he'd hate any kind of sappy bullshit where we lament the loss of a great American writer, I can't help myself. He wasn't just a writer. He created a whole fucking genre. He kept the knee deep shit of our times real by twisting it in the drug induced blender of fiction, but it poured out more true than journalism ever could. While the fascist, psuedo-religious cults running this plutocracy will celebrate the deep funk that led to this man's demise, those of us who understood his twisted tunnel to the truth will never forget what he did for us, and for that sick sack of shit we call reality.

His last work: Hey Rube : Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness - Modern History from the Sports Desk

Quotes from Hey Rube:

"No sir, not a chance. Mr. Jones does not even pretend to know what's happening in America Right now, and neither does any-one else..."

"We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic." - Written in the year 2000.

Robin took some great winter wallpaper pictures while she was in New York recently. I'm not sure why Robin always winds up taking the winter wallpaper photographs... Maybe it's my aversion to the cold, or the fact that she can ski circles around me, literally. Some of the pics in this series were taken while she was on snowshoes. While I didn't get to go on this trip, I'm pretty sure she could snowshoe circles around me too.

A dialogue about the Hollywood Bowl feedback problem

After my Dad died in March, 2000, I searched the internet to find references to him. When I found an engineer who had a few bad things to say about my old man, we had a little civilized dialogue.

Today, I got this letter from one of the great sound engineers of our day, Phil Allen, who I've had the pleasure to work with on several occasions. Thanks, Phil.

Scott,

I was searching for the Hollywood Sound web site to see if they had a PM-5D for rent, and my google search also pulled up a page in a Procol Harum site about some disaster they had many moons ago that they conveniently blamed on the "union sound engineer." Just as I finished reading it and had my blood thoroughly boiling, and my resolve up to send the whole mess to you so you could put up some sort of defense, I found a link on their site to a letter you wrote about your dad. They were nice enough to include a much more detailed account along with your letter, offering a more plausible, less bumper sticker rendition of the events.

I should have known you would be on the trail. As one of probably thousands of young, obnoxious, arrogant sound mixers who played the Bowl, I can attest to the fact that your dad was a gem. He saved me from ruin, and let me walk away still thinking I was a damn genius. Not only was he a great guy, and a great soundman, he was out there on the crest of the first wave. What he did, and the gear he did it with, was amazing. It is so easy to recline behind my Cadac and mass of computers in front of my line arrays and bitch about how tough I have it, but the truth is if it wasn't for your dad and a handful of guys like him I would be selling CD players at Best Buy.

I browsed your sites and I was so proud, and grateful once again, that I can tell everybody I mixed at the Bowl when Frank Supak was there.

Missing you,
Phil Allen

"Something can't just appear out of nothing- that's another scientific fact! Mike"

Well, if you'll read up on your quantum physics, you'll realize that we really don't know what matter will or won't do. We can only give it probabilities for certain behaviors we've observed in the past.

As for possible Religious explanations of the big bang, that too would qualify as something we really don't understand. String theory is only now touching on hidden dimensional possibilities that would theorize a bouncing big bang theory wherein the matter in the universe expands as far as the initial energy of the explosion that caused it, and then it starts to shrink, until it all meets again, collapses into a giant black whole, and explodes again.

Oh and to all of you who smoked pot before you read that, I’m really sorry.

Supak.com

Converstaion with a Friend on Civility

Hi Scott,

I met a few Randian nuts a couple of years back and I must say they are among the most wack-o people I have ever met. The ones I met advocated for total anarchy. Their premise was that any government of any kind was evil. I thought they were joking and that they were just venting. But as I probed more, it turned out that the histrionics weren't. They actually believed and were virulently against any form of government whatsoever.

Ayn Rand would have called them wack-o's. Anything I wrote, any entreaties I made to rationality were rebuffed. I submitted my best stuff and it was completely derided.

I have to say one thing about BTC [our unofficial stagehand's union group at Yahoo]. It seems at times like we act like apes toward one another and fair argument can be made in that direction. However, compared with the on-line manners in the bigger virtual world out there, we have the courtliest manners of any chat group I have ever seen. Folks, it is madness out there. The art of discourse is unknown.

Did your parents ever periodically sit you down at the dinner table on say--a Sunday night and include you in conversation? Turn the TV off and just you, mom and dad and sis? My parents would periodically do that. They would talk about any issue, religion, current events, history, cars, sumo wrestling--you name it, and I was expected to contribute to the conversation. It did not matter what I said. What was important was that I said something and exercised the old brain a bit. Experience and judgment hopefully would develop in time.

I have carried this tradition on, work schedules permitting with my wife and 3 kids. It is amazing the kind of dividends it pays when you treat children and teens with the same level of respect in conversation that you might give to Buckminster Fuller; allowing them to complete their sentences without interrupting. I learned from reading history that in Roman times it was not unheard of for 13-year-old boys to be leading troops around Europe and overseeing the building of aqueducts.

Can anybody in this forum remember back when they were 13 or so, feeling ready to inherit the earth? Remember back to just before you decided the cards were too stacked against teenagers and thus turned to drugs and/or alcohol as an escape? Am I the only one? I will bet I am not. Especially in this BTC forum.

Scott, tell me if I have you wrong on this, but my deal is this: If you actually EARNED the money by honest (not on technicalities and "legal" chicanery) and have paid your way to the top and have fairly compensated those who helped you get and stay there, then I think you can have all the money in the world. It does not bother me one bit.

What does bother me are the people who make money make money by manipulating stock markets, financial ledgers and duping investors and employees and so forth. The slack in the economy has to be taken up somewhere otherwise the value of the currency will falter. And guess who has to take up this slack? Yep. The working stiff. You and me. That is where the inequity lies. And that is why populations revolt. They get sick of the idle rich getting fat off their hard work with none of the promised trickle-down rewards or dividends.

Corruption is endemic in the capitalist system. Teddy Roosevelt, a far from perfect president at least was able to partially take the country back out from under the gluttonous corporate tyrannies of Rockefeller, Morgan et al.

What is the difference between capitalism and communism? One is a military tyranny where only a few live high on the hog and the other is a corporate tyranny where only a few live high on the hog.

In Ancient Greece, a local cynic by the name of Diogenes could be seen carrying around a lantern even during the day time. He was illustrating that he was ever searching for "an honest man", but to no avail. Well, Diogenes was, after all, a cynic. Cynics were not popular in Athens. They were mostly counter-productive. Cynics advocated apathy and spewed doom and gloom and cast a pall over everything positive. The cynic movement came from a section of Athens called "Kynikos", or translated; Dog-town. When a person is regarded as a yapping cur-dog or "cynic", one is referring all the way back to Ancient Athens.

It is a big world out there and in spite of appearances to the contrary, there is not much civility or decorum. What passes for it these days is mostly put-downs and red-neck or white collar rhetoric.

But where civility does exist, those who practice it probably have fond memories of conversation with family and friends at a dinner table somewhere.

Jeff

Jeff,

Ah, civility. I was raised by red-necks who fought all the time in the backwoods of Arkansas. I spent my summers with my Dad at the Hollywood Bowl, because if I wanted to see him, that's where he was for the whole summer. I'd spend 9 months reading so I could spend three months talking to him (when he wasn't too busy). It's a miracle I don't have a split personality. He was a moderate Republican, and we had very civil conversations, even though he bordered on a racist with all that Bell Curve crap from the Manhattan Institute (Randians).

Your view of communism is shaped by the distorted fascist socialistic system the soviets used. It wasn't even close to what Marx wrote about. His was more of a big union (workers of the world unite) that threw off the chains the corporate, 1984-Rollerball world strapped upon us. I'm not a communist, even on small scales. I think some jobs should pay more. That's why I've supported personal service contracts in the local. Making more money than somebody less skilled or who works less is only fair. Hard work should be rewarded. But work should not be taxed more than wealth. That is where I depart from most Randians, present company excluded, and Bushians.

We have that little coke-head frat brat mommy's boy (I can't be civil when talking about GW "God Speaks Through Me" Bush) stand up during a Presidential debate and lie when he said "By far, the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the middle class." Two-thirds of the Bush tax cuts have gone to people who make more that $200,000 a year. And rates on taxes on investment income have fallen below the rates middle class people pay for income earned from their hard labor. Where are all the millions of jobs they told us these tax cuts would create?

I don't see how we can be expected to be civil when so much depends upon politics now. We have fascist Republicans comparing Howard Dean to suicide bombers (Governor Pataki, to his credit, rebuked this asinine comment from the head of the NY GOP). We have liars making commercials slandering a guy who actually fought for his country, to help a draft dodger who was snorting so much coke he wouldn't even take the physical he was supposed to. I get so many death threats I stopped counting. People call me a traitor because I don't support W. That one really gets me, when they question my patriotism, like they did to Kerry. Patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel.

As Democrats and other progressive have tried to make civil, logical, reasoned responses to these attacks, we have fallen into the trap to make us look like pussies. I'd like just one of these Chicken Hawk sons of bitches to stand and look Wes Clark in the eye and try that. He doesn't put up with that crap. Maybe it's all those years of being in the military, but he not only puts people in their place when they try to fuck with him like that, he does it forcefully and creatively. I try to do that, but I'm no Rhodes Scholar. Even Howard Dean doesn't take it. Maybe that's why they're attacking him so hard, because they know he's no push-over. He got an A+ from the NRA and that scares them too. He believes in balanced budgets, as opposed to Dick "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney. Who are the real conservatives anymore?

No, when I think back to civility, I think of my Philosophy classes at the University of Arkansas. Since then, it's all been distortion, lies, vicious attacks, and death threats. It's time we started playing hard ball too.

Scott

Vacation Rentals Family Vacation Rentals Vacation Packages Worldwide

I just created a new section of our Big Bear vacation rental web site that takes advantage or our new vacation packages and travel reservation system. I did some research on vacation rental destinations that people search for, and created some pages where you can make reservations for these popular travel destinations. Even if you're looking for a large family vacation rental, you can find what you need here.

New Scientist Breaking News - Political meddling alleged in US wildlife service

My wife woke me up by shoving this horrifying story into my face when it appeared in the LA Times last week. Once I cleared the cob webs, I was less shocked, and just my usual generally outraged, because this is the reason de etre of the Bush administration. Remember "fuzzy math?"

I'm convinced that this is a direct result of Bush thinking that he's speeding up the second coming of Christ. Who gives a shit about the planet when there's money to be made destroying the environment quickly, before Jesus gets back.

How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?

That's from an old Dire Straits song, from the CD Love over Gold, which seems apt for Valentines Day, if you don't want to send pesticide free flowers from Hawaii. Industrial Disease is one of my favorite songs. And now, in the second term of the worst environmental president in history, it really hits home. Especially the Jesus part.

Two men say they're Jesus
One of them must be wrong

The now infamous Bush quote "God speaks through me" really convinces me that that he is completely nuts. They need to up his dose of prozac. Then when he conveniently ignores all the important things in the New Testament, like the bit about protecting God's creation, at least he might keep his mouth shut about it.

Chicago Tribune | EPA, Interior cutbacks blasted:

"An alliance of several of the nation's leading environmental and conservation organizations charged Wednesday that, when viewed as a whole, President Bush's 2006 budget makes cuts far deeper than those he proposed specifically for the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency.

In short, the groups said the budget stands as 'the most anti-environment budget blueprint ever proposed by his administration.'"

And yet, in all three presidential debates, only one woman, in the second debate, asked a question about the environment. The worst environmental administration in history was given a total pass by the press, and the main-stream opposition. I hope blogging can help change the course of that stream...

Anti-Bush News Archives of Bush Treason and Treachery

I"m having a lot of fun over in my recently redesigned Bush Treason Blog with the Jeff Gannon, gay male prostitute, story. Treason? Well, seems this right-wing plant was smack in the middle of the Valeri Plame outing, just like he may have been smack in the middle of a gay prostitution ring. Pretty damn funny from a guy who constantly berated Kerry for his positions on Gay Rights.

"Go ahead, Jeff": Talon News "reporter" Jeff Ga ... [Media Matters for America]

I'm not a reporter. But I play one in the White House. I could go on for hours, but the other liberal blogs, like the Daily KOS, are saying it all. Like, is this guy a porn star? A male prostitute? One thing's for sure: they loved him in the White House.

White House-credentialed fake news reporter "Jeff Gannon" from fake news agency "Talon News" was cited by the Washington Post as having the only access to an internal CIA memo that named Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA agent. Gannon, in a question posed to Wilson in an October 2003 interview, referred to the memo (to which no other news outlet had access, according to the Post). Gannon subsequently has been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury looking into the Plame outing.

I always figured the Valerie Plame outing would be one of these prick's Watergates. They have lots of others. Wesley Clark hinted at the problems this White House will have with sunshine:

"This administration is trying to do something that ought to be politically impossible to do in a democracy, and that is to govern against the will of the majority. That requires twisted facts, silence, secrecy, and very poor lighting. That's why you need night-vision goggles to see what's going on over there."—General Wesley Clark, US Army (Ret.)

Since this fits into the Bush is committing treason theme, I'll be posting the follow ups at my Bush Treason blog.

WalMart - helping China, hurting America

Help spread the truth about WalMart. This is a brilliant grassroots campaign idea from the Service Employee's union and their president, Andy Stern. Please click here. Sign up for a grassroots, truth about WalMart campaign.

Last month Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, launched a million-dollar advertising campaign attempting to silence critics who point out facts like that in 2001 the average Wal-Mart clerk made just $8.23 an hour - below the federal poverty line for a family of three.

Reliance on public assistance programs in California by Wal-Mart workers costs the state's taxpayers an estimated $86 million annually. (Source: UC Berkeley Study)

It's time to start spreading the real facts: Wal-Mart is big, but they can't outrun the truth.

The Bush Diaries: A Dinner Party, Among Friends

I just had to link to this post, because I couldn't resist commenting on it. Read my comments there. I agree with Peter that the left needs to stop arguing with ourselves. But we shouldn't just cave in to these right wing attacks that are really the reason we lose. We just don't attack Republicans the way they attack us. And that's a shame, because we have more creative people on our side. While we look for a leader who can articulate a progressive vision in a way that a majority of people will vote for (John Edwards, Hillary?), we need to do to them what they do to us. We need to define them as the hypocritical assholes they are. And when we start to do that, it will be obvious that they can dish it out, but they can't take it.

Nobody wants to vote for a wuss. And that's what we are if we don't get right back in the faces of those who lie about us and slander us. How can you expect Americans, who want someone to stand up for them (against terrorists and greedy CEOs), to vote for a party that won't stand up for itself?

Bush Says God Speaks Through Him

I don't know how I missed putting this on my big page of Bush quotes, but it's there now.

"God speaks through me."—Smoketown, Pennsylvania, July 16, 2004 (first reported in the local papers, including the Intelligencer Journal and the Lancaster New Era)

During a recent discussion in one of the newgroups I'm in, I researched and posted a whole slew of Bush quotes about God. Even many left wingers hate atheists, as I've learned. The truly Christian friends I have, who recognize the power of good deeds, even without good faith, are dismayed by the level of hatred I can generate from "Christians" who are pretty liberal.

My problem with them, and probably the reason they get so angry, is that I think that wussy side of the progressive movement in this country has ruined us. We need to be agressive, angry, mean, and nasty, like the Republicans, and we need to be more creative about it than they are. My evidence for why I think this will work? Well, just look at who controls the government. It worked for them, and they don't even have very creative hatchet men. I mean, C'mon! If they can win with Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly on their side, then we should be able to cream them in the nasty competition. Michael Moore and Al Franken have it right. Take it to them hard and mean, and always with the FACTS on our side, because they're a bunch of lying assholes.

Anyway, to get back to the point at hand, here's a whole bunch more fun Bush quotes about his state religion:

"I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else, to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God."—Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005

"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."—Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen quoting Bush when they met in Aqaba; reported in The Haaretz Reporter by Arnon Regular

"This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."—Sunday, September 16, 2001

"I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state."—January 29, 2001

"The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."—September 20, 2001

"Take the life issue. This issue requires a president and an administration leading our nation to understand the importance of life. This whole faith-based initiative really ties into a larger cultural issue that we're working on. It begins to affect the life issue, as well as the human dignity issue, because when you're talking about welcoming people of faith to help people who are disadvantaged and are unable to defend themselves, the logical step is also those babies."—January 31, 2001, unaware that a press microphone was on, telling Roman Catholic "faith-based" subsidy supporters that they are "vital allies" because they won't "be eroded by political correctness or whatever," and assuring them that his scheme to give tax money to religious groups will help them promote opposition to legal abortion, at the White House, quoted from Margaret Sykes, "Bush Caught on Tape — Again: Says he'll use tax dollars to help religious groups oppose abortion," About Pro-Choice Views, February 1, 2001

We do not prescribe any prayer; we welcome all prayer."—February 1, 2001 (huh?)

"Our priorities is our faith."—Greensboro, North Carolina, October. 10, 2000

"Our new faith-based laws have removed government as a roadblock to people of faith who hear the call."—September, 2000

"I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for president."—September, 2000

I urge all Texans to answer the call to serve those in need. By volunteering their time, energy or resources to helping others, adults and youngsters follow Christ's message of love and service in thought and deed. Therefore, I, George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim June 10, 2000, Jesus Day in Texas and urge the appropriate recognition whereof, in official recognition whereof, I hereby affix my signature this 17th day of April, 2000."—Jesus Day 2000

For a comprehensive list of idiotic Bush quotes (is that redundant?), visit my George Dumbya Bush page.

Photo Mugs Free Pics Christmas Photo Cards Photo Christmas Cards

So, you have all your favorite pictures in the world. Maybe you've downloaded a lot of our free wallpaper and free desktop wallpaper, like our winter wallpaper scenes, or our Hawaii pictures. Now all you have to do is upload them to Shutterfly. Then you can make photo mugs, aprons, tote bags, free pics, Christmas photo cards, greeting cards, mouse pads, calendars, note cards, poster-size prints, and other photo gifts.

To order high-quality prints of my best pictures, visit my Pro Gallery. If you're a photographer, you can sell your photographs at your own Shutterfly Pro Gallery. Sign up for one here.

Hainan Island Environmentalist

The LA Times printed a story about Hainan Island Province in China today: Chinese Tree Savior Put Himself Out on a Limb. The story about Xing Yiqian, whose "cash-for-trees strategy has earned him cult status" on Hainan Island. He's struggling to save Hainan Island's environment, but he's broke. He needs donations. But most of all, he needs people to stay at his resort. When I find out what that resort is, I'll tell everyone. The story didn't exactly make it clear how to find him, but it did say that the refuge where he is is called Mingrenshan.

Visit Golden Fish Travels for more information about booking a vacation to Hainan Island China.