Depression...

Well...I've been working for the past couple of days replacing my Google Ad Sense ads with an Ebay ad... not that I expect anything to come of it. I've had a couple of other affiliate tries, Warbirds - which did aircraft models, and some kind of poster store, and had no luck, and no clicks, with either. Adsense was my one profitable revenue stream, and for them to just take it away from me...

What's worse of course is that they didn't bother to tell me why! I have no porn on the site, no racist remarks, no offensive content (that any "normal" person would deem offensive - I call Obama a socialist and he is one!) .... what else is there? Click fraud? I can't click on my own ads, that's the rules, but even if I *did* click on them, I earn no money because the system knows that the click comes from my ISP...so how can I be involved in click fraud?

So I'm sitting here, bewildered and pissed off, and if I had deep enough pockets, I'd start a lawsuit so quick it would make their heads spin. Because that's what really irks...the fact that they won't explain why they've done this. Their "explanation" page says they don't explain why in order to "protect" their customers, but you know it's because they're trying to protect themselves from lawsuits. Well, I'd sue 'em anyway if I had any money.

So...with my money-making webzines rendered useless, I've just been putzing around for the last few days, thinking, "What's the use..." Even if I made any reasonable amount of money, the guvmint would just find a way of taking it away... either through mismanaging the economy so that the dollar becomes worthless, or increasing taxes so all my hard-earned money gets taken from me and "spread around" to other people who did nothing to earn it (and therefore, and this is human nature, won't appreciate it - and therefore demand more as their "due"!)

God I'm pissed off!

Good Search

As far as I know, Google hasn't bought out Yahoo yet (interesting how Bill Gates gets in trouble for "monopolies" when huge corporations like Google can buy up stuff like Dejanews and Blogger and nobody says a word...)

Anyway, don't use Google as your home page or your search engine! Use Good Search.

http://www.goodsearch.com/Default.aspx

It's Yahoo's search engine, and by using it, and choosing a charity of your choice to receive the money, you will be helping out a charity. It's only a nickel or so per search, which is not much at all, but hey, every lil bit helps out.

http://www.goodsearch.com/Default.aspx

Is the URL for Good search.

If you don't have a charity already in mind, may I suggest either:

Alzheimers CURE Foundation (one of several Alzheimer's charities participating in this program)

or

International Women's Air and Space Musuem

Boycott Google Adsense

My rage at Google Adsense continues to grow.

Saturday morning, I signed on to my Google Adsense account to see how many nickels I'd earned up to that point. I don't earn much from this revenue stream, a couple of dollars a day at most, but at the end of the year it was enough to pay for my hosting account for my website.

But... I found out that my account had been disabled. Absolutely no warning. No explanation. I found a form letter "request for reinstatement" or whatever the heck it was called at Google's Help Section, and sent that in, and supposedly it takes 48 hours before they decide if they'll reinstate your account.

But...this just annoys the hell out of me. I don't know what I've done...I don't know what's wrong, and they won't tell me. (Their policy is that they have the right to terminate your account at any time, and don't have to tell you why. Presumably this is to avoid law suits, should you find out that they're doing it because they don't like the content of your website.)

Well, all I've got on my site is science fiction, a tribute to a few actors, and that's it! I recently started a site in which I planned to cover Obama's first four years as President "through the prism of a small business owner who isn't looking forward to "redistribution of wealth"", but surely they wouldn't disable me because of that.

As for click fraud, what the hell's that? Even if I click on my own page's ads, I don't get any money, their system catches it. So if someone *else* clicks on an ad a gazillion times, shouldn't *they* be the ones punished by having their ISP banned, not having my site ruined????

Now, what I just found out today, is the Search box that I had on every page is also no longer functional. Presumably this is because if anyone does a search, there are Google ads on the search page... but if my account is disabled why not just make those ads invisible? Instead, my entire search box just...won't.... work.

So, I'm assuming that the 48-hour thing meant Monday through Friday, so I'll be giving them until Tuesday night to reinstate me.

But even after that, I'm 90% determined to get rid of all their ads from my site. I'll write up some ebooks or other material of my own to sell, and make my own ads for them, and to hell with Adsense!

Hate to lose the searchbox, though, because that was a nice feature...

Nevertheless, I also won't be clicking on anybody else's google ad sense ads... and if you're a friend, you wont either! (The URL that the ad is supposed to direct you to is at the very bottom of the ad. So just type that in to the Address bar and hit enter, and let that take you where you want to go. Save money for tthe advertiser, and takes money away from Adsense. I love it.)

Wednesday on BBC Radio 7

Here's whats on Thursday, Nov 6, 2008 at BBC radio 7, and they will be available for 7 more days before dropping off hte system.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio7/programmes/schedules/2008/11/06

They're all programs that have aired several times in the past - nothing new.

Spaceship
Episode 3
7 days left to listen
What are strange noises coming from the hold? Karen's shocked when the crew investigate.

The House on the Strand
Episode 3
7 days left to listen
Dick makes a third 'trip' into the past.

Adventures in Science (NON-FICTION) - 5 minutes.
Series 2, Flu
Ben Silburn goes to war. His enemy is the influenza virus, his battlefield the human body.

Wednesay is still available
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio7/programmes/schedules/2008/11/05

The House on the Strand
Episode 2
6 days left to listen
Dick Young finds himself transported back six centuries.

Adventures in Science (NON-FICTION)
Series 2, Recalling the Past
6 days left to listen
Ben Silburn journeys around the neural network of our brain.

The World As We Know It
The End
7 days left to listen
Comedy about four housemates who seem to be the last people left on Earth.

Spaceship
Episode 3
7 days left to listen
What are strange noises coming from the hold? Karen's shocked when the crew investigate.

Tuesday still available

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio7/programmes/schedules/2008/11/04

Spaceship
Episode 1
5 days left to listen
An alien princess proves to be problematic for the crew. 00:30 -01:00 The House on the Strand

Episode 1
5 days left to listen

Adventures in Science
Series 2, Supermassive Black Holes
5 days left to listen
Ben Silburn explores 'the most spectacular objects in the universe'.

Dick Young makes his first 'trip' into the past.

Monday

Doctor Who
Brave New Town
4 days left to listen
The Tardis arrives in a sleepy seaside village. Or does it?

Beyond the Vortex
Series 2, Everyday is like Sunday
4 days left to listen
Relive Bryan Adams being number one forever!

Adventures in Science
Series 2, The Morning after the Night Before
4 days left to listen
Ben Silburn follows alcohol through our bodies to find out why it gives pleasure and pain.

The Delicious Death Society

Introducing The Delicious Death Society (also known as The Friends of Mr. Cairo).

Many years ago, when Geocities was Geocities, and free, I put together a website called The Friends of Mr. Cairo. Then, Geocities sold out to Yahoo, and all of a sudden advertisements appeared on the site. That was okay, they had to make some money off their free sites, and the first ads were unobtrustive pop-ups that appeared in one corner and then disappeared, never to return. But after a few months, the ads became more obtrusive. They occuppied the entire right side of hte page, and even when you "closed" it, there was always a section of it there, right beside the up-down scroll bar, such that if you moved your mouse over it in order to scroll up or down, the ad would reappear, and you'd have to close it again.

That really annoyed me. I felt like I was being blackmailed into buying their "no-ad" service, by being forced to have ads on the site that were soooo obnoxious that no one would want to have anything to do with the site.

So, I gave up on the site.

Now, however, I have my own domain, etc. etc. and decided that I'd move over the complete website, so that at last I could get some benefit out of it.

So.... originally it was called The Friends of Mr. Cairo, and actually only a few of the sections are active, but I'll be working on it from now on and get it up to snuff.

So, please check it out.

Jim Moran, Democrat from Virginia

Keeping your own wealth is a simplistic notion.



Here's the thing. The government most certainly "shares the wealth." What are welfare payments to people who don't work anything other than "sharing the wealth?" For every family who legitimately hit hard times and needs a little help to *get back on their feet,*, there is the family which consists of a "single" mom with ten or eleven kids, who has no education, who doesn't value education, who demands Section 8 housing and will burn down the home of anyone who won't give her what she *wants*. Too bad she doesnt' get given what she deserves... ie having her tubes tied for her.

This was posted on the Sean Hannity forums, and it is just shocking. For everyone who is infuriated by this guy's statement, there's another person who says, "Yes, it makes sense."

Seems to me the wealthy give a great deal to charity, they pay a great deal in taxes (and if they don't they go to jail. Anyone remember Leona Helmsley?), and they get a raw deal.

And the problem is these people think that wealth applies *only* to those whom Americans consider rich. Problem is. For the rest of the world living in poverty, even a poor person in the US is rich... and doesn't deserve to be, eh? If everyone can't be rich, then no one can be. That's the philosophy of the socialist... never mind that 10 % of people in a socialist country are rich - the rulers - while 90% of the people are dirt poor.

I prefer the American system, flawed though it is when it comes to enabling welfare.

Forrest J. Ackerman

Forrest J. Ackerman, interventor of the term "sci-fi," editor of the magazines Spacemen and Famous Monsters of Filmland, was born in 1916. He is currently home at the "Mini-Ackermansion", struggling with pneumonia.

Read tributes to him at:

Classic Horror Films Message Forums
http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/19869/master/1/

Scarlet Street Message Forums
http://scarletstreet.yuku.com/topic/5130?page=154

and from July 8, 2008 - he last appeared at a ComicsCon Convention
http://blogs.kpbs.org/index.php/comic-con/comments/legend_of_famous_monsters_forrest_j_ackerman_at_comic_con/

The Price of Fear

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jn6j

The Man Who Hated Scenes, starring Vincent Price and Peter Cushing.

The first Price of Fear episode currently playing on BBC Radio 7.

Playing for the next 5 days.

Affectionate otters

A popular video on YouTube. Two otters floating around in their pond, holding hands. You tellin' me they don't feel love?