What Defines what a Legitimate Business Expense is?
A friend and I went to London. We got a deal on the plane tickets, but the normal price for them would have been around $10,000 each. In some countries that plane ticket price would exceeds the output of the average worker for A WHOLE DECADE. People can spend that much and call it a legitimate business expense. Why?

The Fair Business World
Much of the business world is set up to make it easy for successful people to stay successful and make it harder for unsuccessful people to crawl out of their socioeconomic holes.

Bad Business Expenses...Wasting Years of My Life in the Fucked up Navy
Less than two years ago I was kicked out of the navy for using drugs. In fact I had to sign up for a credit card as I was getting kicked out to fund my living. I had no knowledge of marketing, web design, or anything really at this point.

I refused to draw unemployment when I was doing bad and am doing well now.

On the Web: Where You Can do Anything
Next year I could probably make about $250,000 in profits...without really even becoming a horrible selling out. The feedback loops on the web are that powerful.

What makes some thing a legitimate business expense?
I met an internet startup executive in a club a few years ago who talked about his bogus personal website where he claimed tons of loses...and it makes one wonder what makes something a legitimate business expense?

I could creat foodreviewguidebyaaron.com and clothingreviewguidebyaaron.com and centralpennsylvanialivingbyaaron.com and write off virtually everything I do. ... I am not going to do this, but my friend wants to create a travel directory and he could get paid to travel all the time...and be legit.

I believe a large portion of the fear and other gross fucking bullshit some of our leaders are doing is simply an attempt to stop people from realizing how much opportunity the web has created.

Some people on the web have their hands in many many many cookie jars. As you find a profitable business model it becomes really easy to dip your hands into many cookie jars. I may soon be in at least a half dozen cookie jars.

People usually become successful on the web due to focus. So why is it that I want to try out so many different cookie jars?

Not sure.

Perhaps I am just a cookie monster...

So recently there have been stories going around about how Google News is biased. All news is biased.

If nothing else you learn to read the inaccuracy and biases in news by reading Google news.

example:
a story snippet: "A huge wall collapsed Monday at an unfinished terminal at Dubai's airport, killing at least eight workers and injuring dozens more, witnesses said."
another link to another version of the story: 5 die in Dubai crash

The Three Broken Pieces of Google News

• Only major stories will usually get enough syndication to find their way into Google news. Smaller stories may get skipped entirely.
  
• Web syndication means and natural human bias means that the most opinionated versions of stories will likely become some of the most popular and get cross referenced the most.
  
• People can optimize their news to bias the results in the same way that I optimize websites to bias search results.

As I learn more I am beginning to see the world as an extremely shady place...

So my friend was a fellow reactor operator on the submarine with me. Recently he had to do a technical paper at college and so he decided to do it on nuclear power.

While looking for sources to cite and looking up information about nuclear criticality in Google he found that safety was a common word that was preventing him from finding exactly what he was looking for.

So he searched Google for nuclear criticality -safety...and there my Navy website was...I always thought of myself as nuclear power without the safety.

Essentially that is the difference between conservatives and liberals.

Most people have both stearn father and nurturing aspects in their lives. The trick is to find the people in the middle, activate the portion of their brain assoicated with the type you want them to vote for, and then carry that thought proccess over from that corner of their mind into politics and the voting booth...while not insulting them or activating defense mechanisms.

Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff is an awesome book about framing that I can not recommend highly enough.

Froogle Search for the book

The Rockridge Institute

Wow...the number of billionaires is up nearly 20% year over year.

in these time of change consolidating wealth and...

School testing is sold as a concept to help keep children and schools up to par. The actual goal of school testing is:

• Test the schools to see how productive they are.
  
• Schools that are behind can be puninshed by having their funding cut to where they are eventually closed.
  
• School can more to a voucher system paid for by taxes where rich kids can go to good school and poor kids like me can go to shitty ones.

Tax cuts are sold as helping the government operate more smoothly and letting citizens decide how to spend their own money.

The actual goal of tax cuts is to:

• Allow corporations and rich individuals to keep more of their money...reward them for doing well in the system.
  
• Cut social spendinging. Financially aiding people is viewed similarly as feeding parasites. If we help people then they will never grow responsible enough to run their own lives.
  
• In cutting social spending it means that progressive organizations need to spread their funds even thinner across more people. These tax cuts overwork these progressive organizations and prevent them from building for the future.
  
• Normally operating in a defecit is considered a bad thing...something old time conservatives would be against. Today it is considered the standard because it starves the system, killing off the weak and the poor.

The goals of tort reform are to:

• Cap what defendants can get for the wreckless behaviour of corporations. Thus corporations can figure the lower cost of malpractice into running a wreckless business.
  
• Additionally this will mean that tort reform lawyers will have their wages significantly lowered.
  
• These tort reform lawyers are one of the major contributors to progressive political campaigns that defend our human and environmental rights. If they can't afford to invest in school then your children many not have clean air to breathe.

So while in London I noticed that they had Ben and Jerry's. No big deal.

Then I took a closer look...they had a flavor called Carmel Chew Chew...which is extremely similar to Tripple Caramel Chunck.

Tripple Caramel Chunk is my favorite flavor...and it is retired. Over here we have shitty flavors like Vanilla for a change, Coffee for a change, and Chocolate for a change.

That change is destroying my brand experience and the brand in my mind...eventually the corporate profits will dip...then perhaps they will see what they are doing to their brand...for a change.

So there is a ton of noise in my life. There is a ton of noise in your life. In London almost all the cabs are driving billboards. In State College (where I live) there is actually a truck that has a billboard as the truck bed...a driving billboard if you will.

More noise...faster, faster...more, more, more.

Few people actively look at how to lower the noise level...the people who figure out how to do it profitabally make big profits.

Right now I am subscribed to a newsletter announcement list with a rather high signal to noise ratio. To me it is great.

Some people think it has too high of a volume and are unsure how they were subscribed.

Nobody said anything for a long time and then one person complained...and a bunch of others jumped in too.

Not everyone will complain about the noise because there is so much noise in our lives...we are used to it.

As soon as one person complains though it sets the frame...and the floodgates open. People create and follow a pattern.

The search engine which is branded to have the best results has the least noise...and thus is set to make a windfall of profits. This is why SEO works so well...if you do it right it is anti-noise.

Who gives a shit if you are uncomfortable. t is perfect for me, and that is all that matters. Oh and you are rude, asshole.

Don't ever ask me to do anything without being mr. happy manners polite, and I will bitch you out while you are promptly doing what I ask you to.

Totally reasonable. Almost.

[added October 11, 2004: I write this blog as if nobody I know will ever read it, so some of the posts will seem a bit crazy. I also did not expect this page to get deep linked by any popular sites, however SEW Forums did that here.

Since I feel a bunch of people are going to bash me and some may perhaps view this as "my side of the story" I want to put a bit more context to the post.

• Daniel Brandt created a tool which he mentioned in search engine watch forums.
• I thought it was a cool tool and put a form box on my site and called the page "the Daniel Brand Toolbar" ... I was trying to give him credit for something that he made that I thought was cool. That is why his name was in the title.
• Other people (mostly bloggers I think) thought it was a useful tool and pointed many links from a bunch of random blogs with "Daniel Brandt Toolbar" as the link text at my post.
• Based on how often I had seen Daniel's name around I did not think anything of it. I did not actively promote that page at all and I did not expect it to rank high for his name.
• Eventually I reformatted my site to advertise my ebook on each page of the site and also added my site title to the end of the page titles.
• Without me intentionally promoting the page it ranked at #3 in Google for Daniel Brandt on its own.
• I do not usually use the phrase "secret squirrel" as strong sales copy, but Mr. Brandt thinks that page was set up to sell tons of ebooks.
• Daniel sent me what I and many of my friends considered to be an insulting and degrading email saying I was trying to use his name to make money. Initially I posted about his tool because I thought it was useful. That is what most bloggers do. It is not like I was trying to not give him credit for his work.
• I thought that email was over the top and posted it publicly at SearchGuild.
• While I was in transit to SEO Roadshow in London (NFFC is cool by the way) Daniel made threatening comments in relationship to how he may have destroyed MicroDoc news and how I was next. In the SearchGuild thread while I was in transit to London:

  If Aaron takes my name out of the title, removes my form from his site, and links only to my set-up educational page, I'll remove the blocks. Currently my blocks include a copy of my email to him. Soon I think I'll add some commentary to these blocks that is more to the point. It's his choice.

• Daniel being Daniel made demands and threats without giving time for any sort of reply.
• By the time I got back Daniel Brandt had blocked referals from my site and started linking into his biography of me.
• If Daniel would have simply asked me to change how the tool was listed or whatever he wanted it would have happened.
• Instead he was rude and talked about how low SEOs were and how I was a really low one at that.
• By the time I even notice any of his threat / request he already has his biography of me up on his site.
• I decide "the hell with Daniel Brandt," if he is going to publish a biography of me on his site I may as well rank #1 for his name.
• Currently I believe this post, my SEO Book site, and the SearchGuild thread are all on the first page of Google when one searches for Daniel Brandt. Had he just in any polite way asked me this would not be the situation.
• I find it absurd that Daniel of all people would complain about someone trying to make their name off the work of another as he seems to try to make his from Google.
• Other than creating this post and linking it to the two other pages I am not (to the best of my knowledge) actively promoting these pages.
• If Daniel wants me to depromote these posts / threads he can unblock my site, remove my biography, and write an open apology for his insulting letter and needless threats.
• Why did Mr. Brandt make that tool public in the first place and then promote it in SEO forums if he was going to send SEOs insulting emails for linking into it?

About Me:
I am rather blunt most of the time. I am not exceptionally successful and I am generally isolated from most of society. On the web I have a voice. It may be a self absorbed voice, but I make sure I have one.

Occassionally that voice steps on some toes. Evidentally recently it happened to Daniel Brandt.

What Daniel Brandt Knows:
Apparently I pissed off Daniel Brandt.

He assumes the wrong address (though my address is easy to find out).

He knows one of my screen names (awall19) though I have many...which are easy to find out.

He knows of 14 of my domains (though I have registered about 100 and some of them are registered through proxy).

My Fan Page:
Interesting enough, one of my first fan pages is a hate page. Recently in emails I have been called unpatriotic and a terrorist. People are swarming, but I am having fun...

Kinda makes me wonder what crap famous people put up with every day?

Me & Daniel Brandt

• My fan / hate page (how bloggers like me game Google)...was inspired by the following
  
• The original blog post which was ranking well for Daniel Brandt.
  
• The forum thread which further pissed off Daniel Brandt.

Notice how I used Daniel Brandt in the text links above. That is keyword rich anchor text and is the practice that Daniel calls Google Bombing. It heavily influences Google's relevancy scores, and is one of the primary reasons Mr Brandt has got as much news coverage as he has.

So my sister is in jail for a long time for a crime I believe she never did. As I grow more financially stable and wealthier you can look for me to pour significant resources into helping reshape the legal system and the lives of those who hooked my sister up.

My sister has a best friend in jail. Today they moved my sisters best friend onto my sisters block and moved my sister off of it. My sister got moved to an entirely new area for no reason other than to make her life miserable. I got to hear my sister cry to me on the phone and other than listening at a rate of over $1 a minute there was nothing I could do. (I wonder what fucking scumbag politicians are getting a kickback on the phone calls).

Worse yet, I can't even visit my sister because the warden of Lincon Correctional Center is a fucking dirtball. I went to visit my sister but they said I could not visit because I did not have my social security card. My social security # was on my military ID but for some reason that was not good and they thought it reasonable for me to drive literally half way across the country to grab my social security card.

Serve the country and get served by shithead idiots. What a wonderful country.

They threatened me and I told them to go fuck themselves. That was years ago and my sister is still being punished for it. I think that shows perfectly that jails are for punishment...absolutely not for any type of rehabilitation.

There are a bunch of deer near Lincoln Correctional Center...hopefully one day one of them finds their way through the warden's windshield.

Because I am pissed off I am sure I do not sound it, but I am prettymuch against violence and prisons. I think any person working for jails who has direct control over the lives of people inside jail cells should spend a little time on the pond...get to know the jail from the inside so they can see the consequences of their own inhumain actions before further destroying the lives of those who are locked up - both the innocent and guilty.

Correctional officers (from my experience) are intillectually limited overbearing petty fucking scumbags.

Thinking about starting a blog for my sister soon. More on that later of course

Many blogs and independant media sources bring new things to light. Often the only people who read and see the messages are those who agree with it anyway.

The cool thing about search engines and the internet is that they allow advertisers or the collective power of a group break their message to an audience that would not normally hear it.

The reason such craziness is occuring in the world is that powerful people are quickly loosing control to people like you and me.

If I was a no talent ass clown in a position of authority I perhaps would try to do everything possible to destroy opportunity. Its too late though and soon enough this consolidated wealth and opportunity will spread back out throughout society.

Consider that right now I am running ads exclusively in swing states. Somebody in a swing state searching for "who should I vote for" found my opinion for 5 cents. There are others doing similar things...and over time the web may perhaps fix our broken political system.

The cool thing about cheap publishing is that anybody can do it. And they can do it outside of the financial loop.

Blogger offers 100% free sofware, hosting, etc.

Our media and our society are set up where profit has to be included in the "business model" of news.

If you can create a community eventually you will profit from it. One way or another... if you do what you are interested in and work hard you will make a name for yourself.

Less than 2 years ago I was completely ignorant about ALL aspects of the web. Still got a ton to learn, but I have be referenced at places like Internet News & The Toronto Star. I also punted an interview for Salon.com...should have asked more about what they wanted before going into the interview.

Anyway this is becoming a tangent rant, but the point is free information that is made out of interest is usually going to be better than that made exclusively for profit. That is the point of The Real Threat of Blogs

I actually modified the below press release a bit. Its awaiting the September 9th launch and is currently resting here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prweb156194.php.

I also emailed it to Michael Moore to see if he thinks I should revise it. Not sure if he will read my email or reply, but you would be surprised at just how many people are reachable via email.

The hardest part of that press release was trying to keep it focused...ie: not to drag on about random things.

A few more interesting recent events

Project Censored
NYC political prisoners (some were completely innocent...perfect example of scumbags abusing their power) more & more
Tentacles of Rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history
GirleyMen for Arnold

Marketer Uses September 11th World Trade Center Tragedy to Exploit Americans

It is sad that many would use the horrific events that occurred September 11th to market their goods and services. People will though. Last year GI Joe sales increased 47% year over year.

September 11th: World Trade Center Tragedy:

What happened at the World Trade Center was sad. I saw pictures a girlfriend of mine took that day. I saw videos of the plane smashing into the WTC. Though I was not there and do not know the damage it caused first hand, I was nearly deployed to fight an unknown enemy that day.

Ever since that sad day many people have been living in fear caused by awful leaders who use fear as an instrument to manipulate social policy for self gain. In fact, this entire month is (in my mind) devoted to that purpose.

Introducing National Preparedness Month...

Politicians are marketers, and many of them are greed driven scumbags.

September is National Preparedness Month. Tom Ridge is waiting until September 9th to make the major announcement. By waiting until September 9th to make the major announcement they ensure they get maximum press coverage and intertwine their message with September 11th anniversary sympathy stories.

The sad tragedy that occurred at the World Trade Center is likely being used to exploit voters.

The official press release is here:

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0481.xml

A more candid (and perhaps more honest) look at the story exists here:

http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2004_08_08.html#001686

The timing of this National Preparedness Month is questionable at best. If it is such an important issue why did we wait 3 years to put it together? Why are we announcing it to be picked up with the September 11th anniversary stories just months before the election?

The True Power of Al Queda:

Politicians and marketers are now using the Al Queda card to manipulate more social policy issues than you or I will ever know.

Example:

Drug companies are sucking a ton of blood out of the economy.

"The most startling fact about 2002 is that the combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion)." - Marcia Angell http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244

Some Americans want to save money by buying cheaper drugs from Canada. Of course that means Al Queda may want to attack this cheaper drug supply:

"'Cues from chatter' gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs." said acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/08/12/fda.terror.ap/

Political Framing:

Politicians have also been busy framing various socially destructive bills with names that are the exact opposite of what they do. See

The Patriot Act http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207

Healthy Forests Initiative http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/004931.html

Bush for the Common Man:

While the average American worker is living in fear and confusion at the Republican National Convention Bush stated "In this time of change, government must take the side of working families."

http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=4601

That is an especially interesting concept since under his administration:

"Commerce Department data on national income trends released on August 27 point toward troubling developments in the current economic recovery. Of greatest concern, wage and salary growth for workers has been exceptionally poor while corporate profits have enjoyed unusually large gains."

http://www.cbpp.org/9-3-04ui.htm

"Average CEO compensation at the 50 firms outsourcing the most service jobs increased by 46 percent in 2003, compared to a 9 percent average increase for all CEOs at the 365 large companies surveyed by Business Week. Top outsourcers earned an average of $10.4 million in 2003, 28 percent more than the average CEO compensation of $8.1 million. From 2001 to 2003, the top 50 outsourcing CEOs earned $2.2 billion while sending an estimated 200,000 jobs overseas."

http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2004/EE2004_pr.html

What is the War on Terrorism?

The war on terrorism is an Orwellian mechanism for consolidating wealth and power. Nothing more, nothing less.

Terry Anderson was held hostage for seven years and has forgiven his captors.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9611/29/anderson/

No amount of killing will bring people back to life.You can not fight terrorism with terrorism and life lived in fear is not really life at all.

About Aaron Wall: Aaron is a web marketer who believes the web should be used to hold leaders accountable for their actions and help the world live in peace.

Just to clarify, I do not think Bush is just a scumbag. I think his rich friends are scumbags. Bush is perhaps better described as ignorant ass (who also just happens to be a scumbag).

Don't believe the stuff I say though. Look at Bush by the numbers.

I sit at my computer facing the road with the window open. Perhaps spending too much time at my computer...too much time at the window. And yet these random flowing electrons have became my life.

I thought about this a bunch last night. Right before I went to sleep I closed the blinds on my window. But the whole concept of living your life in front of an open window really parallels my thoughts and actions.

I try hard to make them exceptionally clear though I often confuse myself or perhaps intentionally mislead my own thoughts.

Only once have I not wrote about something because I knew my mom reads this stupid blog, but I was amazed at how many people comment about something I posted in it a while ago.

In a sense I am completely transparent and yet I feel few people usually understand me.

Each post on any forum or blog is a bit more of my life lived in front of an open window.

Zell Miller <--- what a joke...this guy is so dumb he wanted to challenge Chris Matthews to a duel. He is also the same vile scumbag who was "once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes." How can any political party be so stupid as to use this guy as the keynote speaker?

Dick Cheney & Zell Miller <-- read how they play both sides of the fence.

George Bush <-- honorable service

we live in a fucked up world

Bush at RNC...

"When I said those words 4 years ago none of us could have envisioned what these years would bring."
how about the CIA? Certainly you displayed your lack of vision when you ignored them.

"If America shows weakness or uncertainty in this decade the world will drift toward tragedy. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN ON MY WATCH."
Already did asshole...

"To make healthcare more affordable and more accessible (sp?) we must pass medical liability reform now."
1.) why didn't we do it in the last 4 years? I saw you giving this same speech (sp?) years ago there bud.
2.) Neat concept there, mimimize how much people can get for malpractice or drugs that destroy their lives.

If we are interested in making healthcare affordable then wy do we state that we think Al Queda is going to attack Canadian drug supply while helping the ten biggest drug companies make more than the other 490 companies combined in the S&P 500?

"In this time of change government must take the side of families."
Does that explain the tax cuts on dividends?

I actually got physically ill at 20 minutes and could watch no more of the presidents speech.

Google, Yahoo!, and Teoma do a good job of finding most information on the web.

For a while search stunk and so people gathered together under the "People do it Better" pretense.

Now each directory makes search algorithms that much better. In a sense directories aid search engines in understanding the semantical and thematical relationships between sites.

The biggest value in directory listings right now is in the effect the listings have on improving search engine rankings. One problem with some of the mid sized directories is that they do not have enough link popularity to support some of the deeper categories.

Today I submitted a buddies site to categories in JoeAnt, GoGuides, Skaffe 2, Gimpsy, Wow Directory, Allestra, and Web Beacon 2, but most of the directories did not have enough link popularity to keep the lower level categories indexed.

I think directory owners would make a ton more money from submissions if they would ensure they advertised enough to build enough link popularity so that it flowed through their sites to get the deeper pages indexed.

It is not hard to see the obvious. Sure some people may want you to spend 10 to see just how bad the problem is with the obvious bias in the Fox News program, but in all reality all you need to do is take a peak at their site.