Politics in the Zeros

Google Adwords tips for local businessses

Bob Morris — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:30:03 +0000

A client is a violin teacher in Santa Monica CA. She gets steady business from the Google Adwords campaign I manage for her.

Here’s how I keep costs down and results up. First, use Google Search only. She doesn’t need Display Network ads, which can get very expensive and aren’t effective. People are going to find her by googling “violin teacher” and not by her ad appearing elsewhere.

I limit the geographical area in which the ad can appear to about a 7 mile radius of her studio. This means only people in that area will see the ad. This simultaneously makes the ad far more targeted and lowers costs. (If you wonder why it’s only a 7 mile radius, then you’ve not been in much traffic on L.A.’s Westside.)

Total cost is about $60 a month. And she gets new students from it.

Public thinks chimps would govern better than Congress

Bob Morris — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:00:09 +0000

Hi, I'm the new Senate Majority Leader you've been waiting for. (wikimedia.org)

Ok, it’s not quite that bad, but close.

A new poll says a mere 5% think Congress is doing a good job with a plurality saying most members of Congress are corrupt.

43% in another poll think random people chosen from a phone book would do a better job than the current Congress.

Disgust with corrupt governments is how rebellions are formed. Sometimes they topple governments too.

Bradley Manning’s arraignment scheduled

Bob Morris — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:30:04 +0000

From a U.S. Army Military District of Washington press release. Bradley Manning’s arraignment will on Feb 23. in Maryland

Pfc. Manning is charged with aiding the enemy; wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet knowing that it is accessible to the enemy; theft of public property or records; transmitting defense information; fraud and related activity in connection with computers; and for violating Army Regulations 25-2 “Information Assurance” and 380-5 “Department of the Army Information Security Program.”

Interestingly, I didn’t sign up for the press release so I guess the US Military must be a Polizeros reader!

Manning is probably screwed, especially since he reused an important password and they were thus able to decrypt crucial files on his Macbook. His only defense is that he did it for a greater good, which probably won’t work in military court.

When you break the Social Contract

Ten Bears — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:22:46 +0000

Forty-three years ago I got a Social Security Card and went to work on a cattle ranch a hundred miles the other side of Burns (Oregon). When I first cashed that first paycheck, I entered into a social contract with The United States Government – specifically that if I pay into the system for the next forty-five or fifty years, then after forty-five or fifty years of paying into the system the system will pay me back. I faithfully met my part of the contract, I faithfully paid into the system.

Now the government wants to take away what I’ve paid for the past forty-three years, just seven years short of honoring its end of the social contract… to steal it from me and give to the bankers, the trustfunders, and the drug/media/oil/military/industrial complex. Violate the social contract we entered into forty-three years ago. Rip me off, and give it away.

Be forewarned, take from me what I have in good faith paid into the system, and I will no longer consider myself a part of this country, nor bound to its laws, its standards or its mores. Rip me off, and I will collectively rip you a new asshole.

Who better to fight the revolution, than a dishonored Vietnam Veteran?

Mortgage fraud settlement a slap on wrist, pushed by Obama

Bob Morris — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:50:19 +0000

The mortgage fraud settlement for $25 billion is pennies on the dollar, ignores rampant criminality that went on for years, and was pushed for hard by Obama, who never met a banksters he didn’t want to protect. There’s no need to bother with quaint concepts like rule of law when banksters need their crimes ignored. Obama is always willing to oblige them.

Remember robosigning and the whole fraudclosure scandal? In a few days you can forget it. Because in America, the cost of contractual rights was just announced, and it is $25 billion: this is the amount of money that banks will pay to settle the fact that for years mortgages were issued and re-issued without proper title and liens on the underlying paper, courtesy of Linda Green et al. Why is this happening? Because staunch hold outs for equitable justice (at least until this point), the AGs of NY and California folded like cheap lawn chairs (we can’t wait to find what corner office of Bank of America they end up in), but not before the one and only intervened.

From the WSJ: “The Obama administration made a full-court press over the past four days to secure the support of key state attorneys general, including those from Florida, California and New York.” Nothing like a little presidential persuasion to help one with overcoming one’s conscience. Because in America the push to abrogate the very foundation of contractual agreements comes from the very top.

Obama supporter vs progressives

Bob Morris — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:45:08 +0000

An Obama supporter joins a progressive web forum. Predictable results follow.

Solar power in the desert: the environmental price

Pat H — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:30:08 +0000

BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah solar power plant at dawn. Vegetation has been mowed and sensitive creatures relocated for the plant's construction. But what effect it will have on the desert ecosystem is unclear. (Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times / November 4, 2011)

Whether or not we like it, massive solar developments will change America’s deserts forever. Julie Cart at Los Angeles Times writes about it here:

Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade — 21 million acres, more than the area of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties put together.

Even if only a few of the proposed projects are built, hundreds of square miles of wild land will be scraped clear. Several thousand miles of power transmission corridors will be created.

The desert will be scarred well beyond a human life span, and no amount of mitigation will repair it, according to scores of federal and state environmental reviews.

Pistol Annies – Hell On Heels

Bob Morris — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:32:54 +0000

Perfect

Ten Bears — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:30:27 +0000

Not as good as requiring a prostrate exam for every Viagra prescription, but close.

Greenwald on ‘repulsive progressive hypocrisy’

Bob Morris — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:14:47 +0000

Once Obama got elected, turnout at anti-war protests dropped off a cliff. It’s clear most protesters were just anti-Bush, not anti-war.

Glenn Greenwald unloads against faux liberals and progressives, who now are a-ok with Obama doing what they protested against Bush for doing.

Repulsive liberal hypocrisy extends far beyond the issue of Guantanamo. A core plank in the Democratic critique of the Bush/Cheney civil liberties assault was the notion that the President could do whatever he wants, in secret and with no checks, to anyone he accuses without trial of being a Terrorist – even including eavesdropping on their communications or detaining them without due process. But President Obama has not only done the same thing, but has gone much farther than mere eavesdropping or detention: he has asserted the power even to kill citizens without due process.

Yet the sounds of protests from the Democratic Party and too many liberals is… crickets.

As Bob Dylan once scathingly sang, “you just want to be on the side that’s winning.” Such people are opportunistic and devoid of principles. I’d rather have a hardcore Tea Partier screaming in my face than have to deal with this kind of slimy backstabbing liberal. At least the Tea Partier has something he believes in.