I’m actually out of my own free will promoting another website here! haha, I know, no one is paying me or anything. I guess you might say that I feel that I sort of owe it to Petition Online for all the valuable service they’ve provided over the years. They sort of seem like an old friend of mine, and I really hate to see them losing power! When I first started using PetitionOnline.com they were a PR7 and doing quite well! Over the years I’ve made 29 petitions myself… amazing to look back at them. Most were complete silliness in fact and I use them because you can add an option to put websites with your signatures so I use them for link quality back to my sites. In creating so many petitions I’ve also created a lot of content for them and they get money out of that so it’s really a win, win situation for us. Allowing URL’s in your signatures isn’t always a great idea, and I’ve started to advance my petition creating techniques to avoid spammers with forcing people to either agree or disagree with the petitions! It works out, and yet even with how few petitions I actually see that allow you to put links in your signatures they still get quite a few spammers, so I figure whatever I can do to get things out of the ordinary is a good thing.

Anyways, the reason I am really writing this is because Petition Online seems to of added a new feature! PetitionOnline.com is a small branch of Artifice Inc. From every aspect I look at it PetitionOnline.com has no bearings on the Artifice company, but I will give them credit for creating the site! Artifice, Inc. is an architecture company, I’ve never been exactly sure on what they do, but I believe they make CAD software, along with some other things relating to the business. So where do petitions come in? Quite simple, they give link quality! What better way of getting thousands of incoming links to your website than allowing other people to create the content for you? In the early days of Web 2.0 the concepts behind PetitionOnline.com are simply ingenious, and have even kept their strength through several evolutions of the net… but since PetitionOnline was doing it’s job, and it was not their main business it got neglected quite a bit with very few updates and slow at that. Because of this neglect the strength they once found in Petition Online has begun to dwindle a bit. The once iconic PR7 PetitionOnline.com has slipped all the way down to a PR5 even though Petition Online is stronger than they’ve ever been! The reason for this is simple, content is being spewed out on the net at an astronomical rate. Most of you don’t look at things this way but every article I publish on this site is a new page, every ten I publish is another new page, every different day I publish on is another new page, every tag I include is yet ANOTHER new page… which is partially why Petition Online did so good in the early days, they took advantage of this page creation early on. Every petition created was three new pages, every hundred signatures was another new page. This very much so helped out the spread of information for Petition Online, however others have caught on and things seem to be changing rapidly. For one I generally include a minimum of five tags per entry on this blog alone, that’s six pages created with every entry no matter what. The way that PR or Page Rank works is simple it takes the number of indexed pages that Google has online and gives you a rating based upon the number of pages that point to yours on average with the number of pages that point to other pages on the net… it also factors in the strength of those links. The people behind Petition Online finally got the drift though and have now added a feature that allows you to add tags to your petition. This feature will definitely increase the value of Petition Online again, only I fear it may be a slow process, which is why I am content with helping them out a bit with some incoming links and news articles to get people using their new feature.

I’m sure many of you have used or signed petitions on PetitionOnline.com and surely owe them a favor for hosting the site at the very least. I know with their addition of the FaceBook button a while back I’ve seen a number of petitions end up on Facebook as groups getting people to sign their petition, which is very much so a help, but it needs more. We’ve got to keep the free ideas marketplace alive!

Have I ever said that I like Ron Paul? Because it’s true, I really do! I so wish that our system of things wasn’t so screwed up that not the best candidate gets in, but the one who smiles prettiest, and spends the most money does. We don’t look at character anymore, we look for… heck I don’t even know, and I don’t think the rest of America knows what they look for in a presidential candidate either. Anyways, Ron Paul is still my man! Even though there’s no way he’d ever be president he’s definitely the only one who deserves it.

Earlier today I was searching through Yahoo! News to see where Ron Paul took second at yesterday.  I have to admit that I didn’t know what state it was, I was in here playing a little bit of Counter Strike: Source when I heard Jordan and Zack who were watching TV freaking out.  I came out to see what all the comotion was about and saw that Ron Paul was in second place with 13% of the vote!  I was exctatic, and glad to put it here on my blog, but just didn’t know what state it was, so I had to look it up this morning.  Anyways, searching for Ron Paul it was the ads that most intrigued me:

Right in the middle of the ones that came up was an ad for Pizza Hut!  I thought maybe they were just trying to capitalize on peoples loyalties to the candidates, but upon a search for all the other candidates there was no Pizza Hut ad.  So it still leaves me wondering, is there somebody at Pizza Hut who obviously has the money to run an advertising campaign like this who supports Ron Paul?  Or are they playing off of the loyalties of the Ron Paul Revolution to make a quick buck?  You decide… personally I’m more of a Papa Johns kind of guy, but I’d be willing to buy from Pizza Hut if they really are in support of Ron Paul… it’d be worth eating a terrible pizza to see Ron Paul get some corporate support.

If you haven’t heard it already Ron Paul took a solid Second place in the Nevada Caucus.  Paul’s response to the place was “Millions of people have heard this message and this is why coming in second is very great, it sends a great message,” then he went on to comment about the South Carolina primary where he took fifth.  Ron Paul taking second place has finally got him mentioned in the mainstream media as well!  I can only imagine how much more powerful Ron Paul’s message will get across now that more people than just those of us looking for and promoting him will be now.  Now we’ll see if my theory is correct, or even close, but I’ve been predicting that if Paul could get some solid mainstream media time and reached people beyond the internet crowd his message would quickly rise and get him to winning some caucuses and primaries.  We’ll see how this plays out in the long run, but I sure as heck hope some other people take notice of this and move some of their wasted votes for people such as Giuliani to Mr. Paul.

Those of you reading my blog for the first time who might not (or even if you are) support Ron Paul might read my stance on why I support Ron Paul.  It’s worth a read even if you’re not going to be convinced, and will give you some insight to what I’m thinking with this.  It’s much beyond most peoples love of Ron Paul’s tax plans, militaristic views, etc.

Mainstream media won’t touch him, polls ignore him, and it appears he doesn’t have much chance of making it to the presidency… so why do I still support Ron Paul? It’s very simple, it has nothing to do with his tax plan, it has nothing to do with his non-interventionist policy, it has nothing to do with his political campaign at all. The reason I support Ron Paul is because of why he is up there to lead. Where as many candidates think that leadership is a position of power where they can get up and push their agenda on other people, Ron Paul does not (even though he has been accused of such things). Ron Paul truly understands what leadership means. No man (or woman) who truly understands leadership WANTS to lead why do you think so few men actually stand up when they should and take positions of power? Instead they hide behind their safe job and do things as they always have because it’s easy. I like to think back to the scene in Gladiator when Marcus Aurelius asks Maximus Decimus Meridius (or just Maximus as referred to most of the movie) to take power and lead Rome after he dies the dialog that occurs between them in this scene:

Marcus Aurelius: Won’t you accept this great honor that I have offered you?
Maximus: With all my heart, no.
Marcus Aurelius: Maximus, that is why it must be you.

Marcus Aurelius is correct, that IS why it must be him who leads.  He understood what leadership meant, he was there, he suffered when his men suffered, he was cold when his men were cold, he was alone when his men were alone… Commodus the son of Marcus Aurelius wanted desperately to lead, but not because he understood what leadership was, because he thought that leadership meant power, power to make the people of Rome love him.  Marcus Aurelius although a great leader of the country, was not a great father leaving Commodus feeling unloved and unwanted by his father.  Doing so was a wound deep inside Commodus’ heart leaving him aching for love and acceptance, he thought that through the power he would wield as emperor he could force everyone to love him.

I see this same desire and ache in the eyes of many of the candidates running for President.  The ache is not there when you look in Ron Paul’s eyes.   He also proves it with the fact that he’s the only candidate that can say he’s been married to his wife for over 25 years.  No Ron Paul doesn’t want to lead out of desire… but out of necessity.  He sees a desperate need in our country, a hunger, a desire, and he wants to sacrifice of himself to do so.  I don’t see that any of the other candidates are ready for this.  I heard an interview with one of the other Republican candidates the other night don’t remember which one it was, but it was one of the top three in the race for the Republican Party.  In the interview the lady simply asked him about the Vice Presidency, before her question was even done he interrupted her and said “I’m not going to be Vice-President.”  Whether he was saying this as a statement of “You don’t have to worry, I’m going to win this thing.” or “It’s all or nothing, president or bust” his answer was wrong.  His answer was wrong because he proved right then and there that he doesn’t understand leadership.  Leadership is not about a position… and it’s not about power.  Leadership is about sacrifice for the greater good, it’s about being alone (because trust me, once you’re in that position of power you’ll never be more alone), it’s about making tough decisions that may cost many lives, and learning to live with it all.

With it being an election year and being quite political myself (I think I just like the confrontation) you can expect that a lot of my thought patterns are swayed towards issues of great debate right now on the political board.  One of the major items that continually comes up is Social Security benefits for the aging “baby boomer” generation.  The money to pay them Social Security just isn’t there, and nobody seems to have any sort of fiscal answer for the problem.  Answer to the problem in my opinion is very simple: so what?  Cut the program and give everyone tax breaks.  Alright, before I get beheaded for being a cruel and heartless young man who just doesn’t understand think about this; 80% of all retirees die within the first two years of retirement.  I don’t know how many of you have seen any of the Nooma videos with Rob Bell, but this makes me think of Rain where Rob Bell tells a story about how him and his son were at a lake he’s walking around it with his son in a little backpack thing and right at the halfway mark it starts to rain.  When his son starts to cry he pulls him out and holds him close to his chest as he heads back towards the cabin whispering to his son the whole way “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to make it, daddy knows the way.”  Rob Bell remembers that moment as one of the most intimate moments he’s had with his young son.  The difference in the situation with Rob and his son, and the elderly about to retire and the true Father is only that Rob’s son didn’t have a choice… I’m sure he would of come to his dad at the tender young age for reassurance and comfort, but he was picked up and held by his father.  Those facing a “crisis” such as no financial freedom to retire with may in fact be able to find joy from the situation if the choose to move towards the Father.  People weren’t made to just retire and live in leisure, and in fact can’t survive such a lifestyle.  Maybe this crisis as so many welcomely are calling it is actually a much more beneficial matter in saving millions of lives.

Alright these numbers have been extremely hard to find, but I got this article from Here who in turn I’m sure got it from somewhere else… but with how bad my hand hurts you can’t expect much of anything from me other than what I have saved already. Anyways, this shows the tight race that we’re facing for finding a new Republican Presidential Candidate… even with how well Ron Paul is doing all news stations STILL ignore him around every corner. Even with last nights Republican debate by ABC and FaceBook the polls on FaceBook showed that 44% were in support of Ron Paul as the most “presidential” every other poll was read off except for that one. It’s almost become a joke with how blatantly obvious they are about skipping over anything pro Ron Paul. Anyways, here’s the numbers showing that Ron Paul still has a good chance even with being skipped over by all traditional media coverage

Ron Paul Narrowly Misses Third Place Finish

Romney and Huckabee spent months and millions in Iowa

By James Buchanan
There wasn’t much chance of Ron Paul doing better than third place in Iowa, and he came within just a few percent of that goal, finishing right on the heels of Fred Thompson and John McCain. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee had spent about four months each in that state. Romney spent about $10 million and Huckabee spent much of the $5 million he rose in the fourth quarter there. The mainstream media also showered Mike Huckabee with a flood of positive reporting for the last two months. Mike Huckabee is a closet liberal, and the media wants him to rise up as the Republican candidate.

Still, what sort of victory was Iowa for Huckabee? How proud can a candidate be when he spends four months of his time in just one state and “wins” the state with a third of the vote (not even a majority)?

Any news about Ron Paul has been virtually blacked out by the mainstream media. The media totally ignored the blimp Paul’s supporters got him –even though it would have been a big story for any other candidate. The media gave only reluctant coverage for the two big fund-raisers which Ron Paul supporters staged, even though one fund raiser set an all time one-day record.

The media and the pollsters have endlessly insisted that Ron Paul was in the low single digits. Maybe it was good that they set the expectations for Ron Paul so low. Now that Ron Paul finished with ten percent in the Iowa caucus, maybe more Americans will see him as a viable candidate.

The New Hampshire Primary is coming up soon, and the Republicans in New Hampshire have traditionally voted for candidates who believe in freedom and the Constitution like Ron Paul. If Ron Paul does well in the New Hampshire race, it will be a huge boost for his campaign, and the mainstream media will have an impossible time ignoring Paul from that point on.

Wow, so I had the craziest dream last night… First off I have to say that I’ve been doing way too much blogging because that was a central theme of my dream. The dream starts out pretty dull, I was being myself and fighting the powers that be with a small crew of friends and Joanna. The world as we know it had gotten pretty bad, we were falling into a major recession, and China was lurking at our doorstep to attack. We were fighting as a group against the way the system was run with everything from the Fed, to Income Taxes, to our spread out military forces (yeah, maybe all the Ron Paul promotions I’ve been doing have had some effect on this dream too). Thing is our country is at the point where change MUST occur or we’re going to be taken over, not like now where we’re at the point where if change doesn’t occur there’s a good chance for recession and other very big financial problems with our government. I’m always the first to start a fight against things that just aren’t right, but I’m also the first to call off the dogs once the point has been proven… there’s no point in a war when it can be resolved with a little bit of stubbornness. Funny thing is I don’t have a whole lot of friends that I just communicate with every day, but the friends that I do have are very loyal and man you offend me you’ll have 20 people knocking at your door ready to rip your head off… before I even ask them to do or say anything about it. So this is where we are in the dream: I’ve got a very loyal crew of friends that are ready to give up anything for a better America so long as I’m around to keep them going strong, the only business in America still making money is the United States Government (which very much so is a business if you don’t believe me ask CEO George Bush if he’s not making any money from the deals he makes as CEO of this great country), the country is full of inner turmoil but no one is ready to face it those that are don’t have the resources to do so, and our country lurks on the edge of war with a country that we’ve supported for so long and nearly bankrupted ourselves in giving our resources over to them.

Our group has been hinting to the government with secretive but aggressive acts. We hit randomly and disappear fast leaving only enough evidence to get the point across that you’ve got to change or we’ll change it for you. Our group has been growing in popularity as many start to see us as the glimmer of hope for a more free society, and reluctantly we’ve taken on some new members to help us with it. Our popularity grows with the help of the internet, the only truly free place left in America. With an offshore account we document our progress on a blog and those who we fight for send us encouragement in anonymous comments. We’ve been sabotaged however and some of our behind the scenes people who were behind as we went in for another powerful demonstration were captured including Joanna. Most of the less loyal that have joined us late in the game give up hope at this point rather easily, but it infuriates me and the few loyal left who aren’t being held by the government and myself get together for one last suicide mission. Although our attempts at change have been aggressive they’ve not been violent up until now. From outside at a long range those of my crew keep a safe exit path from the building as I go in to rescue those that I can. I go in with nothing more than a pair of swords and my stealthy ways as weapons are increasingly hard to come by for the general public. I know that they really wanted me as the ring leader and don’t suspect any harm for myself as they would like me alive to make a martyr of me. I go in and am able to rescue Joanna with a couple of other close and loyal friends as they were being held in an office instead of a jail cell more as bait than anything. I remember this scene the most, using a remotely operated rifle I’m able to take out one guard by the window and the remaining guard gets an intimate introduction to the pointy end of my sword as I slip out of the shadows from the adjoining office. He asks as he’s falling to the ground how we slipped in to which I respond “It’s pretty hard to lock somebody out who’s already in when you lock the doors.” Which I have no idea what it means because I wasn’t in when they took everybody captive obviously… so I must of had some suspicion of where they were being taken and slipped in before they got them there or something and just waited in the shadows until my crew was set up and then pounced.

The escape is a bitter sweet moment as we move out silently I sent Joanna and the others out the back side of the building which was being guarded and held secure for escape by the remaining crew. I went rather rashly through a side exit and moved towards the front bringing the attention of the guards and making the path safe for those who were entrapped to escape. After dodging a couple of the guards out front who were instructed to capture me I began the foot race through the wooded area out front with some sort of gadget or special jump jet that allowed me to take extra long strides and jump to the heights of the tree tops (yeah, don’t ask I have no idea where that one comes from). At full speed and through the forest they’re not able to pursue, but someone does catch up. My closest friend and ally using the same technology, the guy who helped me initially organize the whole thing and pull it off, who was by my side the whole time. He comes up beside me and says “You knew it wouldn’t last forever.” Distracted I looked over to him questioning his meaning. The next thing I remember I was cut and bruised laying inside a home with broken glass everywhere (apparently while distracted I crashed into someones home and through the window) as the government forces closed in behind me.

The next segment of the dream I am shackled in a court room, but there is great hope as everyone shows up to not only stand up for my character, but also to prove to the government that they were no longer scared, and if they wanted to take their hero they would have to do so by force. This was a particularly odd part of the dream since the entire dream even though I was me, I was not in me. I was always watching as if from a cameras perspective outside of my body, yet from the court room I was in first person mode (as I was also starting at the crashed scene when I started coming to, before blacking out again). We never find out what happens from the court room, we are left with a sense of great hope, and a possibility of change, but everything fades out from this point on as… well if it were a movie the credits would start rolling at this point.

I really wish I had a device where I could capture the images and near video footage in my head of this dream because we’re talking The Bourne Identity level of acting, grade of fight scenes, and power of story line. It’s good stuff we’re talking about here, big blockbuster hit kind of thing!

Ok, this was a comment I wrote on a site that Jordan sent me here –> http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/12/ron_paul_on_taxes.php Linking to the article will only further the credibility of the article in the search engines, so you can copy and paste it into your browser if you want to read the full retardation for yourself. I figured if I spent so much time writing a response that will never really be read at least I’d put it on my site

A number of readers want me to really dive into Ron Paul’s economic policies and explain why I don’t like them.

Ok, I’m waiting. I haven’t seen anything from you yet. If taxes was the only thing that I was voting for Ron Paul for then he still has my vote, after reading your blabber. Your little image pie chart with spending shows exactly why his policy of cutting and eventually eliminating taxes will work. Are you blind? Because you pointed out that a large portion of government spending goes towards “everything else” but failed to mention that the second largest and bigger spending than everything else “defense” can be cut back to nearly nothing by pulling our troops out of countries that they shouldn’t be in (which just so happens to be every country in the world other than the United States). And he would have the power to do so seeing as one of the main duties of president is Commander in Chief.

I see him scoring cheap campaign points off of American hostility to foreigners, particularly poor foreigners who compete with them economically

I want to ask you something; have you ever been to Mexico? Or talked with one of your poor foreigners who deserve as much chance as any of us to come into America work a job illegally and send the money they earn to a foreign country? I hate to burst your bubble but most of them aren’t the sweet kind Mexican down the street who mows your yard, washes your dishes, or stocks your shelves at the local Target out of goodness of their heart. I’ve had the pleasure of going to Mexico and it doesn’t take long talking to any Mexican that they hate you just for being an American, that they hate your country just because it has been prosperous. I’ve had the pleasure of working with both Chinese and Mexicans at a couple of different jobs I worked. Most of them were working here illegally, most hated America (even though they were here working), and almost all of them were sending our money out of our country which BTW if you’ve not checked recently is 100x worse than any inflation problems at devaluating our money. I do say most to be fair to the few who come here to stay and live and are just trying to get by on what they have.

And I see him, like everyone else, dodging the major fiscal challenge of our time: the problem of paying for the health care and pensions of the retiring baby boomers.

I have one thing to say: Where’s the opt-out form for SSA? Social Security is… well let me put it lightly, bull-shit. You know what most people like about Ron Paul? He’s not a big supporter of the government babysitting everyone. He gives the power back to the people, you screw over your financial situation it’s your own damn fault. You have no more right to blame the government because the government wasn’t your mommy and daddy your whole life.

Similarly, he attacks the Social Security Administration’s plan for a “totalization” agreement with Mexico, claiming that it will result in the American taxpayer, suddenly and for no apparent reason, sending a ton of money to Mexicans who work here for a little while and then go back to Mexico in order to loll around in the sun collecting their Social Security checks.

This sounds ludicrous because it’s a gross distortion. Totalization agreements are standard practice between countries with social security systems; they prevent people who are working abroad, but planning to retire in their own country, from having to make contributions to two systems. We have totalization agreements with any number of countries, and the actuaries at the SSA expect that the agreement with Mexico will have little impact either way on the trust funds. Indeed, the agreement with Mexico will cost us much less than our agreement with that nation of mooching scabs, the Canadians.

I almost left this alone… but I couldn’t. You’re retarded aren’t you? I mean seriously, not trying to be cruel or politically incorrect, I’m not trying to make fun of your disability or anything, but are you? Because that would explain your entire article. You do realize that there are a few distinct reasons why we have open borders with Canada and don’t with Mexico right? You do understand that the American dollar is still more powerful than the Peso, but is dwindling even now to becoming less powerful than the Canadian dollar right? You do understand that the Canadians have a much more stable economy than our own, and that Mexico is ten thousand times more of a mooching scab than the Canadians could ever be if that was their life goal right? But oh right, the Mexicans are already stealing our money therefore we won’t notice if they take more. They come here to America and we give them health care and welfare benefits that we say our own citizens can’t qualify for even though they don’t put any taxes or money back into our system. So lets now voluntarily send even more money to their country because they can’t afford to support their system as is. You do understand that Mexico is like a company that’s bankrupt, only they have a neighboring company that’s still got some money in reserve (America) that they can come over to and take money from, that’s the only reason why Mexico hasn’t disappeared yet. Another thing, don’t ever bring up an argument and site the person who wants the plans to go through as the expert on the matter. That would be like saying that the new AMD Phenom processors are amazing and the cache bug with them isn’t really affecting performance much because of the patch on them… oh and BTW you know this because AMD says so. Guess what, I love AMD they’re a great company, but their cache bug, even with the BIOS patch is still a huge problem, why do you think they’re selling them for under $250, when the competition has theirs for nearly $1,000? Saying that it’s not as bad as everyone thinks it is because the SSA (who wants the deal to go through for some God awful reason) says it’s not as bad as everyone thinks it will be.

Another thing I noticed about the comments on your article is that all the Ron Paul supporters are educated and cite sources and everything… all those who are against Ron Paul do the same thing that you did and just say “oh his policies will stop my welfare check I can’t have that” and then sign off.

Alrighty, well I was searching through my images and saw this one. Figured I had better get it up before the voting season gets in full swing and Dick Cheney isn’t vice president any longer.