Israelestine Est. 2525

There are theories of a day when Israel and Palestine will come to peace, and form what has would be called New Jerusalem. Perhaps that’s just my wishful thinking or naïve interpretation of various prophetical writings, which are usually vague to start with. At first, I thought it was just one pet theory by some guy that channels an angelic being that’s come here to facilitate Earth changes into a new era, the New Age, the Age of Aquarius.

The city of Jerusalem is a focal point of three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Temple Mount is the place where the original Jewish Temple in Jerusalem stood on the site where Abraham offered his son Isaac in sacrifice to God. The ancient Israelites built the Tabernacle of Moses on the spot. Solomon built the first temple to replace the tabernacle. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon 420 years later, and the Second Temple was built 70 years after that. Romans destroyed the Second Jewish Temple 410 years later in 70 A.D., leaving only the West Wall, the famous “Wailing Wall.” In 691 A.D., Palestinians erected the famous Dome of the Rock shrine, called the Mosque of Umar, on the same spot where it is said that the prophet Mohammed ascended into heaven. Jerusalem was also the place where Jesus preached, performed many miracles, and was condemned to be crucified. I’m beginning to think that Temple Mount in Jerusalem is some sort of holy wormhole portal into Heaven that sucks up all the great enlightened prophets of the ages.

A Google search turns up much more about the New Jerusalem. There’s a poem by visionary author William Blake. There’s a Musical Group (I think) called New Jerusalem Music. There’s a church called the New Church, the General Church Of The New Jerusalem, based on the writings of Mormon preacher Emanuel Swedenborg. Ultimately, the New Jerusalem is described in the Bible, Revelations 21. One web site says that Jerusalem has always been a symbol of God’s presence on earth. Many of these sources say that the New Jerusalem is the end result of human struggle, and is a place of peace and happiness, ruled by reason. Another individual notes that Jerusalem has historically been a place of bloodshed, and is unlikely to be the focal point of Earth’s transition into an age of profound world peace.

Okay, that’s the history lesson. I thought I’d prognosticate how such a euphoric utopia might somehow arise out of a city that is the focal point of two cultures who want to either annihilate each other, or displace and deny the other’s right to exist. Israel, and Palestine. Merging these two states would be a bit like crossing a cat with a dog, and watching the poor creature chase itself to death. Or like crossing an apple with an orange, and answering the cliché “You can’t compare apples with oranges.” I imagine that it would take a very long time for these two cultures to resolve their differences. I can’t help but to think of that 60’s song by Zager and Evans

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive they may find

Only it should be

. . . If Israel is still alive
If Palestine can survive . . .

When I first read about the New Jerusalem and thought about the Islamic extremists, terrorists, Islamofascists, or whatever you want to call them, I wondered in my own Pantheistic way, “How is it that the left hand of God goes to war with the right hand of God?” In my own unique oversimplification of matters, I think of scooping a bowl of ice cream, how one hand holds the bucket steady, while the other hand scoops the ice cream out. Two hands, working cooperatively in opposition to accomplish one goal. Why is it that Israel and Palestine can't be like that?

To stretch my mind into the distant future, and determine how Israel and Palestine could co-rule the New Jerusalem, I think of the ancient Greek Spartan kingdom. Two kings, who had to come to an agreement to make any decisions, ruled the Spartans. This, along with a strong hierarchical government structure resulted in one of the strongest military kingdoms to have ever existed. Historians theorize that the strength of the dual kingship was because it prevented absolutism. Others believed it was a compromise arrived at to end the struggle between two families or communities. Does this sound much like Israel and Palestine?

Switching to terrorist web site, jihadwatch.org, there is an article titled Palestinian Cleric: We Will Enter Palestine as Conquerors, Not Through Negotiations But Through Jihad. The article is filled with more jihadist rhetoric about how it’s the duty of every Muslim to exterminate Jews everywhere, and it’s the destiny of Palestine to “liberate Jerusalem and regain Palestine.” The interviewee cites hadith and Koranic verse

Judgment Day would come only when the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims would kill the Jews, and the stone and tree would say: 'Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew. . . there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him', except for the Gharqad tree.

Indeed, it will be a very long time, if ever Israel and Palestine can make peace. I feel that these Palestinians are behaving like a bunch of naughty children, and ought to all be sent to their room without supper, and give the Temple Mount to Israel. Let them build their Third Temple, and let’s get this thing over with.

Islam Extremists Accept support of Cindy Sheehan

One of the biggest flaps in the ongoing media frenzy over the war in Iraq is Cindy Sheehan is protesting at the gates of President Bush’s ranch in Crawford Texas. It appears that her son, Casey Sheehan, was killed in action while on duty in Iraq. And for some reason, Ralph Nader, felt compelled to write a public letter in support of Ms. Sheehan’s presidential camp-in. Or maybe Nader is writing the letter for his own political agenda.

Go visit Islamic web site, aljazeera.com, and you’ll get a feel for how the Islamic extremists really appreciate the support from the liberals. Especially telling are some of the reader comments, such as this one, which was rated a “Good Comment” by fellow readers:

i send my condolences to this poor lady. she is another victim by hands of bush. she is what america use to stand for. bush has no heart, no feelings, and no morals. he sat on ranch relaxing as a grieving lady cries on his door step. all she wants is an answer why her son is ddidd. bush cant even spare a minute for a man who gave his life for the sake of oil. he does not care and he has no value for life.nader who also happens to be an arab showed more respect for this lady then the man responsible of his ddethh. when all you brainless bush supporters get drafted by bush and sent out to dyy i hope you all remember everything you said since the start of this war. you will all turn and run. its easy to support a war when your sitting around at home drinking beer and watching sports. but when your leader comes calling you will all show your true colors and find a rock to hide under because your all kkoowerdds like bush.

If you can keep your spell-checker from going ballistic over this passage, it might be instructive to analyze a few points.

• The author believes that President Bush planted bombs beside the roads, sent trucks loaded with bombs into lines of Iraqi children, military checkpoints, sent disillusioned Muslims with bombs into the transit systems of London, and had airplanes flown into the World Trade Center buildings. Last time I checked, it was the Islamic extremists that were carrying out these activities, and this was the reason why President Bush has troops stationed in Iraq to stop these activities.
• Casey Sheehan gave his life for oil. Is that why oil is up to $65 a barrel now? Casey Sheehan gave his life so that oil could be more expensive? Less expensive? Hmmm, I must’ve missed the big rush to seize the Iraqi oil fields as soon as the coalition forces got into Iraq. Maybe it’s because they wanted to protect the legitimate citizens of Iraq before they set out to seize the oil fields that the price of oil has gone up so much.
• “Ralph Nader is an Arab.” Well, well, well, you could’ve fooled me. As I recall from the last presidential election (in which Nader was a candidate), he did not have any public position one way or the other about the war in Iraq. His primary issues were relating to the environment. Is this what makes him an Arab? Having no position on Arab issues?
• The author shows his hatred for “all you brainless Bush supporters…” Now wait a minute. If Bush is responsible for Casey Sheehan’s death, and all the other soldiers who’ve died as a result of their illegal invasion of Iraq, then I suppose that makes Bush an Arab too, just like Ralph Nader. Just who’s side is this guy on, anyway?
• Bush supporters sit around drinking beer and watching sports. I’ve got nothing against watching sports, or against drinking beer for that matter - as long as you don’t drink and drive. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had a beer, and I only really watch sports whenever the Denver Broncos play in the Superbowl. Until then, I think I’ll see if I can dig enough change out of the couch to go buy a soda pop, sit back in my office chair, and surf the blogosphere, watching illiterate Islamic extremists make fools of themselves in this hopeless war against Muslim children lined up for candy from our soldiers.
  

Spirituality, Mudslinging, and Religionism

I’ve taken the Theta Healing class. I’m going to take the two-day workshop a week from now, and until then, I’ll suspend judgment of the technique. Just a couple of quick notes about it first. The class was not intended to be, and did not serve as, a healing clinic. It was meant to instruct and familiarize the students with the principles and techniques. Three days before the class started, I decided to get some extra sleep, so I wouldn’t be nodding off during the class. That first day, I woke up at 1:00 PM with what felt like plugged up ears. That’s still happening at this time. I have this, and much more to work on. Most of the students in the class were professionals who work in the healing arts or various areas of alternative medicine, such as massage therapy, naturopathy, herbology, and so forth. As far as belief in God goes, the technique respects all beliefs in God, but does not endorse any particular religion or belief system. Students are asked to claim that they “pray to God, and God heals.”

I’ve decided that blogging on political issues is a major drain on my time and energy. If my main objective at this time is to build up the ecommerce web business, and after that has been accomplished, to develop more writing and marketing skills, then blogging extensively about world politics is interfering with my immediate goals, and not contributing significantly to my development of either writing or marketing skills.

But I can’t help but to maintain an interest anyway. I’ve been reading the Islamic web site, aljazeera.com, and the comments that are posted there. I’ve resisted the temptation to add to the already inflammatory comments, which would just be further fueling the terrorist sentiment. I’ve noticed that the articles that are written are often out-dated, and usually distort the views in an anti-American way, or just misrepresent the facts. The comments that are posted are almost universally inflammatory, use extremely poor spelling, grammar and punctuation. I suspect that many of those who post comments are among a small band of hired ghost-writers who post inflammatory comments from the perspective of both extremes, for the purpose of fueling the controversy and the anti-American sentiment.

On another favorite blog, Pedro on the quietist has some good comments that I largely concur with. It’s a little acknowledged fact that negative campaigning is one of the most widely used political tactics: to discredit the other side with loosely supported accusations of insanity or immorality. They used to call this “mudslinging.” I guess calling it “negative campaigning” gives some dignity back to taking the dignity away from one’s opponent. For the record, I voted for Bush in the last election. I thought long and hard about the issue of the war on terror. I concluded that George W. Bush already had a strategy for dealing with the situation in Iraq, and the problem of Islamic extremism, and was familiar with the issues, whereas John Kerry never did present any strategy at all for the war, except to attempt to discredit Bush. At the state level, however, I decided to vote Democratic. Senate candidate Pete Coors, head of the Coors beer dynasty, who I began to refer to as “Senator Beer Baron” represented some rather dangerous possibilities. Coors proposed to cut taxes. It turned out that he wanted to cut corporate taxes, while leaving individual income taxes unchanged. I’ve always been suspicious of trickle-down economic theory. Thinking from the perspective of corporate executives, why would they trickle-down tax savings to the grunt-level employees or even the shareholders, when they could increase their own executive salaries by the same amount? And there was the issue of major funding for Pete Coors coming from the NRA. As much as I believe in gun safety and second amendment rights, I think that the NRA should just keep out of politics. That places the NRA in the position of a militia, which is not what we need when we already have a competent well-trained military. And there’s the fact that the Denver Post advertised for Pete Coors, but not for his democratic opponent Ken Salazar. So I preferred to vote for “Senator Salad-Bar” (Salazar), who would actually do some things for the Colorado citizens, rather than “Senator Beer Baron,” and his self-serving interests.

Another article on the quietist discusses “Religion vs. Spirituality.” I have some strong views on this subject. I’m not sure what the perspective of the original article is; I think it’s facetious, but I’ve always found sarcasm to be confusing, and often take it literally and get in trouble. I grew up in a Christian family. I started seeking broader views of God at about age eight. Sometime during the many years of studying mysticism, I concluded that conventional religionism is suitable only for those who lack the capacity to contemplate the mysteries of life and of the Universe, and derive their own cosmology, that might even be consistent with scientific as well as progressive religious thinking. Religion provides a ready-made package of answers to all of life’s problems. After all, millions of Muslims can’t all be wrong. Except in the eyes of Christians. Okay then, millions of Christians can’t all be wrong. Except in the eyes of Jews. Okay then, millions of Jews can’t all be wrong. Repeat for Hindus, Buddhists, and any other religion you find.

The Mars Connection (Part V, Conclusion)

In my natal astrological chart, I was born with Mars in Libra; opposite to Aries, the sign it rules. When a planet is in it’s “fall” like this, its effect is weakened. Mars represents the archetype of the Warrior, passion, desire, energy and action. With an afflicted Mars, I express this in life by often lacking those qualities: passion, desire, energy and action.

With the events of May and June, this lack of Mars energy has become apparent to me in several symbolic ways. Running the paper route has left me with an ongoing battle against fatigue. A friend suggested that my symptoms indicated that I needed adrenal support supplements. I’ve since determined that Enzymatic Therapy’s Fatigued To Fantastic Adrenal Stress End has been the greatest help in alleviating the fatigue. DHEA also helps to an extent. And of course, a few extra hours sleep during the day helps too. I’ve learned a great deal in recent months about adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and these and other supplements and vitamins. Mars rules the adrenal glands, which is what these supplements help. The DHEA supports the adrenals as well as the testosterone level. Mars also rules the sexual urge.

Another problem was the urinary problem, that I mentioned before. Getting “pissed off” is more than a pun. I’ve had urinary problems since I was a kid. Yes, I was a bed-wetter. I didn’t even know when it happened. I think I was about ten years old when my mom took me to a urologist, who treated me for a bladder infection.

The bouts of anger were another indication. With properly modulated Mars energy, one would not respond to unfortunate events out of pure anger. Balanced Mars energy allows one to act rationally, with purpose, and with results.

To everything there is a season...
A time to love, and a time to hate
A time of war, and a time of peace
-- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The mechanical problems with the truck have been further indications of Mars issues. The truck had radiator problems – a corroded radiator, and a leaky hose, both of which had to be replaced. Symbolically, with a defective cooling system, you could say that I “couldn’t keep my cool.” The clutch in the truck has also shown signs of wear, and will likely be the next major component to be replaced. The clutch would be symbolic of a “lack of self-control.” In astrological symbolism, Mars also represents mechanical abilities and mechanical things, which covers automotive repairs.

With all of this multiple symbolism of Mars issues coming up, it soon became apparent to me that this is the source of my problems. I’ve learned to use Sanskrit Mantra to adjust mental and psychic energies. When I first became aware that something wasn’t right, I turned to my Mantra book, Healing Mantras (Thomas Ashley-Farrand). Sometimes, important information seems to leap right out at me. When I opened Healing Mantras in search of answers and solutions, the first section that I opened to covered physical and planetary karma. It explained the different types of karma. Prarabdha karma is the karma that has resulted in the current lifetime, and includes the karma that is described by the position of the planets at the moment of birth. This is what astrology is based on. There are mantras described for resolving karma associated with each of the planets. In Healing Mantras, Mars is related to the sex organs, adrenal glands, and red blood cells. The Mars mantra, which I have been using for at least the prescribed period of time, is

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

You will see that mantra in my previous entries. Since I began that practice, I haven’t had any more serious mechanical problems. My fatigue is under control, and I don’t get easily worn out. I haven’t had any more urinary problems. I still get upset from time to time, but it’s more modulated, more easily controlled with humor. I’ve had periods where I have more energy.

My interests have been drawn to other things now. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the problems of the worldwide Islamic Jihad, the war on terrorism, and on the political issues. And, starting tomorrow, I’m taking a three-day class on a form of psychic healing and self empowerment called Theta Healing. I think it’ll be interesting to see, when I “go up and seek God,” in what way I refer to God. But more interesting, I’d like to see what I can make of my life once I identify and remove some of the inappropriate failure-programming that’s been affecting me my whole life. That might be a topic for another blog entry, or series of entries.

There Are No Moderate Muslims

I’ve spent the last several days reading through a series of political blogs. Up until now, I was convinced that most blogs are either schoolgirls publicly chronicling their social life, or spammers promoting their pornography, mortgage refinancing, or some other web site.

Then, I happened upon The Belmont Club. Then I found a whole slew of other really interesting blogs:

State Of Flux
The Quietist
Neo-Neocon
Rightwing Nuthouse
No Oil For Pacifists
The Wide Awakes
TMH’s Bacon Bits
WILLisms

Maybe some day I’ll have to break this blog up into three separate blogs: one for the newspaper carrier experiences, one for the mystical contemplations, and one for the political commentary. But then, the reader wouldn’t get the sense of what a complex human being I can be, how it might be possible to be all these things at once (and more) and would believe that I really am a 12 year-old kid who rides his bicycle around the block in mid-morning, throwing newspapers at dogs, flowerpots, bushes and windows (none of which is true).

I got to thinking about my political views. When I was in college, my dorm buddies would try to get me to talk politics, and then call me a pacifist because I didn’t want to have my admittedly ignorant views scrutinized and criticized. Am I left, or right? Liberal or Conservative? Republican or Democrat? I’ve traditionally voted Republican, partly because my family, my dad is Republican, and because I, at least used to believe in industry and free enterprise. From what I’ve been reading on these blogs, I suppose I’m liberal. Liberal, in that I think we should wait and see what the Islamic terrorists really want. Wait until we all get so fed up with their senseless attacks that we send bevy after bevy after bevy of bombers and fighters and submarines and aircraft carriers and ICBMs all loaded with nukes and bomb the holy crap out of (insert long list of middle-eastern nations, included Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia repeated several times) until there’s nothing left but a big crater full of radioactive oily seawater connecting the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. Surely we can make some sort of vehicle that runs off of radioactive oily seawater. :-)

Okay, that might be a bit too extreme. And we don’t want to end up as bad off as the Muslim extremists, now do we? No, we don’t want to stoop to their level. Besides, not all Muslims are extremists. Besides, as the liberals keep telling us, we’re supposed to “understand” what the terrorists want, why they think how they do, and how we might possibly “appease” them.

In the mystical tradition, the way to overcome the demon – called the Dweller On The Threshold, or what Carl Jung later called the “shadow-personality” – is to lift the veil of darkness, and gaze into the eyes of the demon. Confront the demon directly, and peer into the depths of his soul, so that the demon will not be able to withstand the light of introspection, and will flee.

I was out searching the web for some information about kids being trained to fight in Somalia. I saw a TV program about our aborted attempt a few years ago to liberate Somalia from the grip of warlordism (or thugocracy to borrow another invented word). But when I did some searches relating to Somalia, I found some Islamic web sites. I’ve wanted to find some of these Islamic web sites. Perusing a few Islamic web sites is a far cry from infiltrating an organization, but it’s as close as I care to get.

There was a story where the UK cops wanted to effectively shut down Islamic web sites with denial-of-service attacks, which struck me as yet another form of terrorism. Why don’t they just track down the IP addresses and owners and names of the people that run those web sites? InterNIC is still a US controlled organization, to the last of my knowledge. But I digress.

I found a few Islamic web sites:
Aljazeera.com
JihadWatch.org
zmag.org
Ocnus.net
Of these, I found Jihad Watch to be the most moderate. Of particular interest was a current article titled The Myth of the ‘Moderate’ Muslim, which in turn quotes the same article published in the London Free Press.

The truth is there does not exist an identifiable body of Muslims, substantive in number or an outright majority, who could be described as "moderate" by their repudiation of Muslim extremists.

Violence has been an integral part of Muslim history, irrespective of whether it is sanctioned by Islam, and Muslims who unhesitatingly use violence to advance their political ambitions have created a climate within their faith-culture that any Muslim who questions such practice is then deemed apostate [without faith] and subject to harm.

If you don’t understand what that’s saying, go read the full article, and all the commentary following it. It means that Islam is by its very nature, a religion of violence, that war is the way of life. And there’s more, in some comments posted by “Gorkhali”

You can never trust a Muslim, because deep down inside, somewhere in their heart they cannot completely accept you as a human being unless you are a Muslim.

Nor can they ever be loyal to the country of their birth, unless it is a Muslim nation (ie, betrayed India and created Pakistan, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)).

They will always hold a certain amount of hatred and disgust for other faiths regardless of how "moderate" they are.

Their will never be a moderate Muslim, since this would mean betrayal of Allah and the Koran.

So not only are they bent on our destruction, but you cannot negotiate with them. The only way to effectively deal with the Muslims is to isolate them, or destroy them. Maybe there’s some value to the policy of turning the Middle East into a crater full of radioactive oily seawater. :-)

The Jihad Watch web site describes Jihad both “struggle,” and as the duty of every Muslim – a way of life, although an often violent way of life. When the war in Afghanistan started some American scholar of Islam described Jihad as an internal struggle, a struggle of the soul.

As a pantheist, I think of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, Voodoo witchdoctors, cats, dogs, horses, birds, whales, sharks, tigers, trees, lettuce, wildflowers, rocks, soil, volcanoes, planets, stars, galaxies, quasars, and vast stretches of empty space as all being expressions of God. Yes, we are all God. Jihad is Gods internal struggle to purge the Shadow. OBL called on Muslims everywhere for Jihad. And the US-led coalition forces stepped in to do the job. Here is your Jihad.

The Wall Street Urinal???

Oh, “Journal.”

We had one of those mass starts of sample papers for everyone’s route for the whole distribution center, and presumably for the whole state of Colorado. Except it wasn’t the Denver Post. It wasn’t the Rocky Mountain News. No. It was the Wall Street Journal. That’s really strange. We’ve never had sample starts of the Journal before. I got 49 new subscribers on my two routes, which in addition to the original four Journal subscribers brings it to a total of 53.

The rumor is that these are all paid subscriptions, not the free samples that the Denver Post is so notorious for. Okay, so if they’re all paid subscriptions, then why are some of these people already canceling? A few of these on my route are going to “resident.” Does the alleged bill also get sent to “resident?” I know that I missed one of these the first day, and never got a complaint about that. If the guy was going to pay for it, and didn’t get it, why would he not complain that he didn’t get it? Just being generous?

I’m not as dumb as I’m being paid to act. Anyway, I’ve decided that it’s good advice to stop delivering to those people that let it pile up. If I’m an agent for the Denver Piss-people-off-with-sample-newspaper-subscriptions Agency, then it’s in my best interest to not piss people off so much that that they call in and stop their sample delivery. According to the rules, I’m supposed to report pile-ups. But if I dumpster them instead, I still get paid $0.50 a week to deliver to the dumpster every day. And the customer is happy, and the Wall Street Journal gets more money from its advertisers for having a larger distribution. And for every two papers that I dumpster, I can get an extra hamburger from Wendy’s dollar menu each week. Woohoo!

Dark Night Of The Soul (Part IV)

I try to stay aware of what Spirit is trying to tell me. I had become a bit too involved in repair and maintenance to talk with Spirit. Maybe there was an entity interfering. Maybe some misguided Spirit Guide was trying to teach me a lesson. But still, there was absolutely no reason why this should have happened in this way at this time. I decided, and declared “If I ever find out who did this, I’m gonna kick his ass!” How do you kick Spirit’s ass? I’d have to quit this life, go over to the other side, and hunt down the perpetrator. How do you kick Spirit’s ass, even from the other side? It doesn’t work like that, sir.

There is a way to fire one’s Spirit Guides. Maybe “fire” is the wrong word. You request a change, and the old ones leave, and then new ones come in. The catch is that in the “intermission period”, you’re completely without any feeling of connection to God, which is experienced as depression and despair. By requesting what Kryon refers to as the neutral implant, the guide change, and graduate status, you are asking for some major changes in your life. The neutral implant is a way of neutralizing the fear and materialistic drives that compel humans to act on a Darwinian level of self-preservation. It’s a way to free the mind and spirit to pursue higher purposes. I had requested the neutral implant several months ago, but continued to feel frustration over not knowing or being able to control what was happening to me spiritually and materially.

There’s other ways to make adjustments to mental programming, spiritual programming (Karma), exorcise demons, dark forces, wayward discarnates, misguided Spirit Guides and other entities, and dabble in all kinds of other Spiritual influences. Some of it gets kind of messy.

“Hold your nose, we’re going in!”

And there’s even a way to Command Spirit to work for you. It’s our right to direct the energies and entities in the world around us. In this new age that we’re already several years into, there is a growing spiritual awareness of humanity’s oneness with God. It’s becoming more of a natural thing for enlightened light-workers to work in cooperation with Spirit.

But it was a growing into that oneness with God that I was experiencing in June when I expressed my anger and frustration with not knowing what the source of my problems were. “Not knowing” is being out of touch with Spirit. Without doing anything more than having the intention, apparently what I had done ended up with firing all of my Spirit Guides. I was severely depressed for three days. It was real bad. If I hadn’t understood what was happening, I would have been suicidal. Since that change, I’ve had a growing sense of awareness, and a renewed sense responsibility

To Be Continued...

Psychic Disturbances

You may want to check out the report of geomagnetic storm data, continuously tracked by the Space Environment Center (SEC) section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The web site is http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/index.html, and the current warnings are at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html. I check this site at least once a day now. You can also check historical data in the archives at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html.

Geomagnetic storms are a result of sunspot and solar flare activity. Periods of strong activity are known to interfere with radio communication, navigation systems, power distribution grids, satellites, pipelines, pose radiation hazards to high altitude aircraft and astronauts, disturb migratory animals, and are visible as aurora borealis or "Northern Lights" in more southern latitudes. Geomagnetic storms are measured on a scale from G1 to G5 similar to that used for tornadoes and hurricanes. A "G1" is Minor, causing power grid fluctuations and affecting migratory animals. A "G5" is Extreme, causing power grid disruptions and blackouts, satellite malfunctions, disruption of HF radio communication for days, and auroras visible as far south as Forida and Texas.

There have been studies that link geomagnetic storms to human mass psychology as reflected by declines in the stock market. The theory is that humans are mentally and emotionally affected by geomagnetic storms, resulting in a market sell-off. See http://www.bc.edu/publications/bcm/winter_2004/ll_solar.html, and the published paper, http://www.frbatlanta.org/invoke.cfm?objectid=AFD46B63-2852-4812-BE83E6D0C777F4BF&method=display. I've also correlated some of these storms with declines in the S&P 500 and DJIA averages.

I can personally account for at least three occasions of disruption, specifically mechanical breakdown of my vehicle and computer malfunctions, occuring within a day or two after some geomagnetic storms. Check out the archives at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html. Here's some dates, for which I have repair receipts and dated computer files as proof:

June 12 - 13, and 15 - 17, 2005, level G2 geomagnetic storm
June 18, I had my truck repaired for a broken water hose. It had been leaking the past few days, and began overheating.

May 28 - 31, 2005, level G2
June 1, I had my truck repaired to have a heavily corroded and leaking radiator replaced.
May 27 - 28, a critical system file on my computer is corrupted, requiring a day of repair, and eventually re-installing many software packages. This threatened to interfere with the final project for a class that I was taking. I was very upset over this, made some harsh decisions, and later went into a deep depression for three days. I'm still recovering emotionally from this.

November 6 - 15, 2004, level G4
November 16, I had my truck repaired to have a slipped timing belt, pulleys, and water pump all replaced. The engine had been making strange sounds for the previous few days, and finally lost power and would not run. The vehicle was in the shop for two days, and I was also unable to perform my job for two days, and lost money as a result. Lost pay from job is undetermined.

Think of recent times when things might have gone wrong for you, and see if there is some correlation. You can check the archives for these and other dates. If you find that there's a relationship, as I have, you might want to follow the current geomagnetic storm warnings page, just like you check the weather report.

Commemoration Of The Dawning Of The Atomic Age

I have to pause in my usual postings. I have several other topics to write about. But this is an issue of profound importance to the whole planet and the entire human race. On this day 60 years ago, July 16, 1945, the first atomic weapon was tested at Trinity Site, White Sands, New Mexico, in the USA.

The entire war had led up to this test, and ultimately the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. From the attack on Pearl Harbor which drew the USA into the war, the sequence of events led the world on a treacherous, but inevitable course that culminated in this. Although Roosevelt was president before, and all through the war, he died of a heart attack, leaving the sole decision of whether or not to use the device to his successor, President Harry S. Truman. Churchill called these type of events "hinge events," because it's like a door opening, the course of history changes with a single event.

It was said that the entire Japanese Empire was involved in the war, that "there are no civilians on the island of Japan." The Japanese people were prepared to fight until the very last man, woman and child. It was decided that this war of attrition could only be won by the total innihilation of Japan; America's genocide. All major Japanese cities were being systematically destroyed with incindiary bombing raids -- the cities were being burnt to the ground. In times such as these, the decision makes itself; it only takes someone to own the decision. So, yes, there were probably many lives saved on both sides by this display of such awsome power that the Japanese Emperor was shocked into surrender.

It has been said that these events sent shock waves throughout the entire Universe, that beings of higher consciousness in other places were aware of what had happened, and that many came to Earth at that time, and in the years afterward to observe the progression of this sequence of events, and their aftermath.

Back at Trinity Site, the first test had profound impact on the conscience of all of those involved. There was a great moral awakening in the USA. "We are nuclear giants, but ethical infants. We know everything about war, but nothing about peace."

J. Robert Oppenheimer had the most notable comments, which I had the privelege of watching him speak on today's installment of The Last Days of WW II today on The History Channel:

"Some laughed. Some cried. Most were silent. I remembered the lines from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, 'And now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all felt the same in some way."

Working For The Weekender

The weekender edition now starts on Thursday. That makes it Thursday through Monday; a TM schedule. Two more days, and it’ll be the whole week.

In the jungle,
In the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP,
I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP,
I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP,
I wing a WEP, I wing a WEP

In the jungle,
In the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post,
I wing a weekender Post

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Cops Can't Rant

There's a story about a NYPD cop that got fired for having a web site for cops to rant about their job. He says he's gonna sue for violation of first ammendment rights and file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. More power to you buddy!

I wonder if the Denver Newspaper Agency, publisher of the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, knows that I use this blog to point out all the stupidity of running a paper route. I wonder if I would get fired for pointing out that they pull shenanigans like changing all their weekender subscribers from a four-day schedule to a five-day schedule just to artificially boost their distribution numbers and get more revenue from their advertisers. I wonder if I did get fired, if I could get pull off a successful lawsuit. Not likely, in Colorado, an "Employment At Will" state. Not likely, working as contract labor. I wonder how many people, if any, actually read this blog. Like the owl and the tootsie pop, "The world may never know."

Survey time. Leave a comment if you read this, and it means anything to you. Just one word, yes or no: would I be justified in suing if I got fired for having this blog?

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Succumbing To Entropy (Part III)

What Happened In May, 2005

This last class, Search Engine Marketing, which I took from April 26 to June 6, was plagued from beginning to end by computer problems. I re-installed Internet Explorer twice, along with the last several service updates. I turned to one of my spiritual practices, Sanskrit Mantra, for assistance. Ganesh is the Hindu expression of God that is called the Remover Of Obstacles.

Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha

That’s the Ganesh Mantra. I was using the Ganesh Mantra, in earnest, to help get rid of the computer problems. The next day, my computer was running a bit sluggish, so I re-booted. That is, I attempted to re-boot. It would not.

It turned out that the one file, NTUSER.DAT, which contains all of the software settings, had become corrupted. “No problem,” I thought. I would just go to my backup, and restore that file. No. The system cannot back up that particular file while the system is running. So, really, there’s no value for doing backups, except to save user data. I managed to shoehorn together the system, using a computerized variation of the “pound in place, and paint to fit” technique that we used to joke about in the machine shop. But I still needed to re-install most of my software. And it was the final week of the class. And I had customers sending me orders that I needed to fill.

I was super pissed off. Of all the files to be corrupted, the one that holds the whole system together had to be the one. If architects built houses the way computer programmers write software, one woodpecker could destroy civilization. There was absolutely no reason why this should have happened in this way at this time. One tiny little beam that holds up the entire tree house of my system, by homework, and my business, and a woodpecker has to come along and drill a hole in it, causing the whole tree house to collapse to the ground.

It appears that the district manager at the newspaper agency has had computer problems of her own in June. Her computer lost its mind. One day we didn’t have any route lists, at all, for any of the routes. Another day, everything was all messed up, the counts didn’t match, there was new addresses in the route list that weren’t on the bundle mail start / stop list. I never hear the details of what happened, but I can tell when something’s up by the way people act all depressed and unresponsive. The manager took a week off recently.

I wish I could afford to take a vacation. Even if I could, I’d need to find a substitute paper carrier. And train him. Fortunately, I have a second route now. Fortunate? Yeah, I can afford to pay my taxes now. I can buy some time, and go back to building the business outside of the paper route.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

To Be Continued...

Don’t Point That Thing At Me!

It’s skunk season. I saw four of them this morning. Two were “courting” beside the street, one hiding down in a driveway, and another one crossing the road.

I’ve learned to recognize the animals I see out at night by the color of their shiny eyes, and by their movements.

Cats have golden eyes, and they walk fast, stop and look, walk again, stop and look, then run into a bush or under a car and watch.

Raccoons have golden eyes, humped backs and stand defiantly, wondering who’s gonna try and steal his garbage, then they’ll reluctantly lumber away. Racoons often take the whole family along, as many as four or five.

Foxes have golden eyes too, maybe red, maybe white, and run like cats, but don’t stop and look. Foxes are unconcerned with cars, and often sit beside the road and watch traffic.

Coyotes are bigger than foxes, and run like foxes, but turn and look with their golden eyes as they run. Coyotes are shyer than foxes; they usually slip away before you can see them unless you watch the shadows outside the headlights.

You never see the eyes of bunny rabbits, which is weird considering how big they are, but they dart about randomly, sometimes drawn to vehicle tires like moths to the flame, and they occasionally pop straight up in the air when they’re startled. I think they know that it’s their mission in life to be coyote lunch, but they somehow mistake trucks for coyotes, and become road pizza instead.

Skunks are the only animals that always have red eyes (when you can see them). If the skunk is happy, it’ll nonchalantly lumber around in the grass, foraging for bugs and worms. If it’s upset, it’ll be in the middle of the road pointing its ass at you.

I remember the first time I saw a skunk. I looked up from wrangling the next newspaper, and there he was, in the middle of the road, with his pants pulled down around his ankles, fluffy black and white tail in the air, pointing a big rosy red asshole at me, counting off “Ready!… Aim!… ” My reaction was to hit the brake and throw it in reverse, “Back up! Back up! Give that boy some room!” Just give him some distance, and he’ll calm down and go about his business. Then after he’s gone, I roll up the window “just in case” and slowly drive past.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Succumbing To Entropy (Part II)

What Happened In May, 2001

May 16 was the four-year anniversary of having lost my last respectable job as a software support engineer. The job had potential. The company had potential. I had the respect of most of the support department. I could have worked into a position as full-blown software development engineer. But then, the company’s founder decided that he wasn’t qualified to run a company, and hired a CEO. CEO’s, as they usually go, act out of un-enlightened self-interest. The first one decided to grow the company by buying up a bunch of smaller companies. He was fired for incompetence. The second one was already retired, and only agreed to do this until they found the guy they really wanted. Then the third guy decided to grow the company by shutting down parts of the company, and pointing out how much money he saved the company.

I was pursuing the latest technology, which the sales people never understood, or cared about. The market for those products was never developed. In yet another political maneuver originating in greed and unenlightened self-interest, the sales manager “acquired” the support department, and shifted the focus away from skills and technology to customer satisfaction. The Sales manager told us “Nothing will change. Continue work as usual.” I told the Support manager that I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, and just let me work on this one project for at least three months to get established. We agreed to this. Two weeks later, I was fired for “poor productivity.”

It was about the 10^th time that I lost my job (I actually lost count), and the second time the managers made up excuses and lied about why they were firing me. That’s when I decided I had had enough with working for corporations as an employee. That’s when I decided to go into business for myself. Four years later, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

To Be Continued...

You Can’t Teach The World A Lesson

My reaction to the London bombings is one of detached, but sad amusement. These terrorist attacks make me think of when as a child, I would stick firecrackers into anthills. The blast would kill or injure a few ants, make the rest of the ants run around in a frenzy, then give them something interesting to work on in rebuilding their anthill. The difference with these suicide bombers is that it’s more like tying a firecracker to your finger, lighting the fuse, and sticking your firecracker-finger into the anthill.

I gave up terrorizing anthills when I was about ten. These Arab terrorist suicide bombers don’t have much more morals or maturity than a ten year-old, or intelligence than a ten year-old who ties a firecracker to his finger.

If you don’t like an anthill, and it’s not on your property, then it’s best to just leave it alone. If it’s on your property, and it’s a problem, then that’s a different story. But firecracker attacks don’t solve the problem.

They’ll attack New York City, Madrid, London, but they never attack Small Town, USA. I feel safe.

Something else that I learned when I was a child is to place the blame appropriately. Someone stole something of mine in grade school, and I got in trouble for beating up an innocent kid out of spite. Meanwhile, whoever did it was happy that they got away with it. I hate practical jokes. But you can’t teach the bully a lesson by beating up innocent kids.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Death Ray

I loaned my spotlight to Sam. Yeah. The 2,000,000 candlepower one.

I’ll bet he was out there, burning holes and writing his name in the grass. Lighting trees on fire. Incinerating dogs. Blinding the carriers for the other paper. Making birds burst into flame in mid-flight. Silhouetting couples making love inside their houses.

You could give the young women the alien abduction experiences.

“And then there was this real bright light. And then I was floating in the air. And there were these strange little men, with big round shiny heads. And they took me up to their spaceship. And there were thousands and thousands of these orange and blue sacks filled with larvae. Then the larvae all turned into newspapers. Then I woke up in bed, all sweaty.”

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Geldof Blasts eBay

Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof has lashed out at the Internet auction site eBay -- calling it an "electronic pimp" -- after pairs of tickets for the upcoming London event have been listed for as much as 10 million pounds ($18 million).

Well Bob, first off, you're accusing eBay of doing the selling. It's not eBay, Bob, it's the individual sellers who are listing the tickets on eBay. eBay is merely providing a venue for making the sale. Just as you're providing a venue for pimping out these artists for your own profiteering on the backs of the impoverished people that your event allegedly benefits. eBay makes a market where there is apparently desire for both seller and buyer to agree upon a price and a means to make a desired exchange. Accusing eBay of profiteering is a bit like saying the New York Stock Exchange is immoral for selling the stock of various gun manufacturers. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Stock exchanges that provide a market for investors to buy and sell stock for gun manufacturer's don't kill people, people who misuse guns kill people. That example may be an extra layer removed than what you're saying. My point is, target your wrath appropriately.

Second, Bob, not everyone who's selling on eBay is profiteering at the expense of the impoverished. How do the impoverished people suffer by someone else selling tickets for an event that they may never even know about? Anyway, back to my second point... As a seller on eBay, I can say that eBay has been my best bet yet for ketting out of - and staying out of - the clutches of both poverty and of the culture of corporate greed. I'm probably one of the very few people in the world who understand the karmic benefits of working through poverty. While everyone else is whining about the condition of the impoverished people, I'm using the experience as motivation to overcome the situation and make something of myself. And I'm making something of myself by building a business of my own, starting by selling stuff on eBay! I don't care if anyone holds a concert for me; that doesn't mean a thing to me.

By lambasting the free enterprise system, Bob, you're attacking the very means by which an ambitious, capable person such as myself could possibly break free of dependence on a culture of corporate greed, where companies like Worldcom and Enron build their own executive bankrolls while keeping their employees in a state of near-poverty, and stealing from their retirement. It's the free enterprise system that made America great. Don't destroy the opportunity for people to get out of poverty by attacking an avenue to success (eBay), and by mollycoddling people away from such avenues to success with handouts and a fish for a day.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha

Anger Management (Part I)

Anger Management

I’ve only had two people scream at me for delivering a newspaper that they didn’t want.

I got a screamer for Christmas.
I really wanted a moaner or a sweater.

That wouldn’t make much sense unless you already heard the original joke:

I got a sweater for Christmas.
I really wanted a moaner or a screamer.

My new mantra:

Om sri angarakaya namaha

You wanna what my what???

If losing my mind is anything like losing my virginity, well then I’m all for it.

Om sri angarakaya namaha

Well Neither Do I!

What should I tell people when they tell me that they don’t want their paper?

• Well neither do I!
  
• Oh, I don’t know anything about that.
  
• Well now you do!
  
• According to my list you do.
  
• Oh, we just changed that. Now you do.
  
• Oh, wait… Accessing… You’re supposed to call someone… who gives a shit. Which is not me.
• See, that's why I'm delivering, and you're being delivered to, and not the other way around.
• You wanna what my what? You wanna kiss my ass??? Okay then, here you go...

Om sri angarakaya namaha

He’s moving into his own apartment

According to my bundle mail, a Mr. Bill Williamson (not his real name) moved into 6565 Bilgewater, apartment 204D (not his real address), and is having his subscription transferred there. But that address isn’t on my route list, so I have to write it in myself, until it can be entered into the computer.

Also, a Mr. Bill Williamson is moving out of 6565 Bilgewater, building D, apartment 204, and wants his subscription transferred. Too bad, I’ve delivered to Mr. Williamson for years.

“But this is the same newspaper with the same schedule at the same address.”

“No, it just wasn’t an exact match, so it didn’t show up in the system.”

“I already deliver there. This change doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“No, It’s a drop-off, so you’ll have to write it in, and remember to deliver to that address.”

“I’m just starting and stopping delivery at the same address.”

“It just didn’t match in the computer because it wasn’t the exact same address.”

Why are you still talking to me about this???

Om sri angarakaya namaha

Virus Volley (Part I)

My computer told me it wanted to do a full system virus scan, so I let it. Apparently, I got a virus in the email on May 17. Not just one virus, but a volley of them. If a group of lions is called a “pride”, and a group of geese is called a “gaggle,” then what is a group of viruses called? A sortie? A colony? An invasion force?

That was about the date my computer lost it’s mind, and I turned into a screamer.

Om sri angarakaya namaha

To be continued…

Competition

In today's headlines, Sun Microsystems announced plans to acquire Storage Tek. From my experience of getting the short end of the stick in corporate acquisitions, I'll tell you how it will be. 32,000 employees plus 7,000 employees equals 32,000 employees. The other 7,000 will be down at the DNA competing with me to deliver newspapers to the other 32,000. That's what happened when Sun drove Solbourne Computer out of business. That's what happened when Aspect Development acquired Cadis Inc. It was an obvious move to eliminate the competition, and acquire the customer base, while all the former Cadis employees were suddenly no longer needed, nor employed. And when Rogue Wave Software went out of business, it was only a year or two before that I was among the first where they started cutting expenses. Well, sorry your jackass manager couldn't decide what she wanted me to do. For the record, Gail King, you promised to let me work on DBTools.h++ for three months, just two weeks before you "fired" me for poor productivity. I hope that helped fatten your golden parachute, Jack Iacabucci. I see it did Ms. Carly Fiorna a lot of good to run HP into the ground. Some $22 million to get fired. Woohoo! For a cool $22 million, I'll go wreck some computer company. The high tech industry is really on fire now!

Overheard while folding newspapers this morning, another carrier asked the manager, "So, we don't get the special bags for the Financial Times anymore?" The answer, "They only give us what they think we need." And when somebody else runs out of bags, they'll steal the bags off of my bench, and leave me with none. It's like a teenager trying to convince his friends to indulge in drugs, sex, or alcohol: "C'mon, everyone's doin' it!" Even the managers encourage this. I asked where to get more bags from, and they said "Just take some from someone else's bench." Well, if they're going to be like that, I'll just take mine home with me whenever the box runs out. I'll keep my own private stock. It doesn't matter if I only deliver two Financial Times on my route. A couple of extra packs in my garage should last me maybe three months. And those other guys can bite me when they can't find any more Financial's bags, and I won't give them any of mine.

And for that guy in the blue Volkswagon that butt-sniffed me, er uh, tailgated me all the way down Arapahoe Road, I'm sorry I almost smeared the front end of your car when you tried to cut beside me into the turn lane. Okay, I'm not sorry. I did it on purpose. I gotta turn too. And I don't feel like racing this geriatric 220,0000 mile truck against you. But if I can get you to wreck into me, it'll be your fault, and I can get your insurance to buy me a new vehicle.

Okay, time to confess. The reason I'm so angry is because I'm all hopped up on DHEA. I take it to help out with the adrenal fatigue syndrome, which I get because I have to get up at 1:00 AM every morning, and don't get near enough sleep. The DHEA not only bolsters the adrenal glands, but it also increases the testosterone levels. I know this personally because, boy do I get a bad case of the erections. The heck with all this Cialis, Levitra, and Viagra bullcrap. DHEA is $5 / bottle, and over the counter. I've sure been needing this for a long time. But, shhhh... keep it as our little secret. Just keep the road rage and whatnot under control, okay? Go sign up at BazaarMart.com with a premium membership, and I'll get you some knives, and leather jackets, and maybe some hunting equipment at near wholesale prices. I just need to finish this last assignment for my class, and get to work building up that business. I'll see you there.

You Don't Know Jack Schitt

So uh, you uh, you don’t want your lunch? Can I have it? You don’t want your education either? Can I have that too?

The Rocky Mountain News has been running a series all this week about how so many students in the public schools aren’t graduating. Of 5653 students entering high school in the Denver Public Schools, only 1863 graduated. When I was in school, it would have been a terrible shame to flunk out of school. Now, kids don’t want to graduate. They go so far as to willfully not participate in the educational process, and fail on purpose.

Public education is one of the few things in life where you actually do get a free lunch. It’s not just the subsidized school lunches. But the education itself is paid for by the state. Taxpayers’ money goes towards the teachers’ salaries, staff and administration, the textbooks, grounds, facilities, and transportation. But by saying they don’t want their education, they’re in essence throwing away that free lunch.

I have a better idea. See, I graduated from high school in 1982, and from college in 1987. Now, my education is out of date, and I’m taking some more classes so that I might have enough skills to do something more than deliver newspapers for a living. After I lost my last job as a software support engineer, I sent out about 600 resumes, and only got about two interviews, and no new engineering job. The skills that I learned in college are out of date because the state of technology has advanced so rapidly. I never realized in the early days of my engineering career that I would have to keep getting educated throughout my entire career just to keep up with the competition in the job market. So now, I have to pay for an education in my next career as a web designer on a paper carrier’s wages. I can’t really afford it. I can’t even make ends meet as it is, without paying for an education as well. But I have no choice.

My idea is that with these kids throwing away the money for their education, and me not being able to pay for my education is that maybe somehow I could get the education money from these high school dropouts. It might involve some sort of illegal scam. Perhaps I could adopt one of those high school dropout wannabe’s, and get the government subsidy for him. I understand that the state of Colorado offers private schools vouchers for families that don’t want to send their kids to public school. So, I could do that, and use the voucher for my own education. Do you suppose that would work?

At the same time, the Rocky Mountain News is also running a story about how Denver wants to eliminate homelessness within the next 10 years. Since those high school dropouts are aiming at becoming the homeless, uneducated, unemployable derelicts of society, the question is obvious. It’s not even a question. The working class taxpayers are going to end up paying for subsidized housing for the kids that don’t want their education now. The challenge is, what to do about the dropouts? How do you enforce an education? They should make it conditional that the people who get the subsidized housing for the homeless either get an education and a job, or they go to prison. Then, they’d just get another free lunch paid for by the working class taxpayers. On second thought, the whole idea of subsidizing the dumb shits is a bad idea. Just scrap the whole program, and make them learn the hard way, just like they want to.

Stone Mushrooms

Maybe it was the cold medicine I took the night before. Maybe it was being exhausted from the trip for Mother’s Day. Or maybe it was something in the Bison meat at the buffet. When I got home from the paper route, I couldn’t stay awake, and decided to get a few more hours of sleep. I kept dreaming about these strange blue stony finger-like stalagmite formations in a cave. I wasn’t doing anything, just looking at them. For hours. All morning long. Once I woke up, I had to figure out what to call them, and what they meant. I decided to call them blue stone mushrooms. But they don’t mean anything.

That’s not the only thing I’ve been fixated on. Once I got my computer restored, again, I’ve been running some defragmentation software. It runs, for hours, and doesn’t do anything, but grind incessantly on the disk drive. So now, I found some different defragmentation software. It runs for hours too, and still doesn’t do anything.

Now that I’m taking the Search Engine Marketing class, I’m doing keyword research. There’s this formula for estimating website traffic based on search engine statistics. But I don’t have the formula. I spend hours trying different kinds of variations. I know that in the end, this is only a tiny portion of the total marketing solution.

And it’s the same thing with the stock market. And the geomagnetic storms. I’ll write about that someday. And here I am, writing when I should be sleeping. What’s the matter with me? Just leave the stone mushrooms alone, and go do what’s important!

And, PS: Thanks to someone for the prayers. I got 57 sample starts on the paper route last Saturday. That’ll mean around $200 extra a month! The only thing is, these sample start campaigns usually only last about a month. Maybe that's why I was so tired.

The Pretender

It's the song that I hate to love. Because it's so poignant. Especially the line that says "I'm gonna be a happy idiot, and struggle for the legal tender." Sometimes when the song comes on, I'll turn the radio off. It's a song about mediocrity. About failure. That F- word cuts me to the heart like a knife.

This song was on this morning while I was getting up. I listened until the radio turned itself off in the middle of the song, telling me that I'm late for work.

You gotta love the Rosicrucians for being such Ivory Tower philosophers. It takes some real life problems like my own to figure out how to have Universal Unconditional Love for all the happy idiots and angry idiots in the world. I wondered if I ever got BazaarMart.com going to the point where I could quit the paper route, what would be next. Now that all my worthless friends have gone away, would I find any new friends? Maybe I'd even consider dating again. It's personal relationships where we learn to practice love so that we might have a chance to know Universal Unconditional Love.

Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for the lady that complained that I missed her paper on Thanksgiving Day, when she was watching out the window until I delivered it 13 minutes late? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for my former best friend when he's disrespectfully feeding his computer game addiction while my cat is dying in my arms a few feet away? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for another friend who would rather waste her life away smoking pot and screwing bar guys than work together with me to get a new job? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for the FTP leechers who uploaded some 10 GB worth of stolen software and music to my personal computer for all their friends to share? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for my former girlfriend because she wanted nothing more than sex from our relationship? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for all the former employers who laid me off so they could cash in their own golden parachutes? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for the terrorists who messed up our economy on 9/11? Can I have Universal Unconditional Love for society for producing people such as these?

The answer is not "No", but "When, and How?" A question answered with more questions.

Credits to the AstraWeb lyrics search engine, here's the lyrics to Jackson Browne - The Pretender

I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You'll get up and do it again
Amen

Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there

Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight

I'm going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each other's paint-by-number dreams
And then we'll put our dark glasses on
And we'll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again
Get it up again

I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Thought true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender