wafflesatnoon.com

A quick Google News search shows Obama and Clinton have about 50,000 more news listings than John McCain. Today’s main pages for Fox News, CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC have McCain completely off the radar. Only Fox had a single McCain story (barely) visible on their main page’s initial loading screen. The others required scrolling down to see anything McCain-related.

The Obama/Clinton horse race has the media riveted, while McCain continues to vanish from the radar. While in some ways it’s good that McCain is able to concentrate on raising funds for the general election, and focus his attacks on the Democrats, the lack of media coverage negates those benefits, particularly the latter.

It remains to be seen if the ultimate nominee on the Democratic side will emerge stronger as a result of the drawn-out race, or if that person will be able to reach out successfully to the loser’s base. There is surely talk of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket, which would perhaps be able to use the constant media coverage of late as fuel for their general election campaign. A splintered party full of disenfranchised voters could be the death knell for Democrats. And McCain appeals to independents and disenfranchised party voters. A splintered party could be a real possibility if both of the current candidates don’t end up on the Democratic ticket.

McCain knows this and he is watching carefully. In fact a successful White House bid may depend on it.

John McCain is essentially off the media radar and will continue to be so for nearly 6 months. He can’t hope to catch up in the couple months between the Republican convention and the general election. He needs a splintered Democratic party, and for the electorate to follow recent historical trends, which slightly lean in his favor.

The conservative wing of the party, as reluctant as they are to support John McCain, are actually the ones keeping his name from disappearing completely off the map. They are the ones discussing his conservative or liberal voting record. They are the ones discussing his faith. They are the ones who are discussing his Washington network.  In other words, as disappointed as they are, the conservatives are keeping McCain’s name out there.

Recent mini-scandals including his flare up at a NY Times reporter and his alleged affair with a lobbyist years ago are the best things to happen to McCain since Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race.

In other words, McCain needs all the controversy he can get… just to stay above the radar.

One has to wonder if Howard Dean has pulled any strings to keep the Obama/Clinton race as tight as possible. It makes for riveting political talk and speculation. And keeps McCain conveniently forgotten.

Good thing we have Rush and the angry conservatives to keep McCain’s name alive.

Most religions teach some form of life after death, whether in the form of heaven or reincarnation. But the concept of life after death in a religious sense is the carrot dangled in front of believers, who think if they conform enough to the control being exercised over them, that they will hopefully achieve it.

There is no disputing that humans physically die. This is convenient for religion. Otherwise, promises of eternal life here on earth would no doubt be easy to disprove. Instead, Christianity, for example, chooses to promise eternal life in heaven as the Great Reward. (Problem is that even Christianity can’t decide if you can achieve salvation by works or by faith, but that’s for another discussion.)

Heaven and God are impossible to prove, and for that reason they are impossible to disprove as well. In fact, merely questioning God’s existence is often seen as blasphemy. In my church days, I would ask what seemed to be logical questions about the Bible, only to hear I shouldn’t question it.

I had to believe it, but I couldn’t question it. Every cult seems to take their blueprints from this Christian standard.

What does this have to do with life after death? It’s one of the main reasons I’m convinced people need to be “saved” from religion because they don’t live for the life they have here on earth, but some promised afterlife that won’t be there when they die. Believers are on the wrong path for these reasons:

• They are living for something that they don’t fully understand, can’t prove, and doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny – the Bible (or whatever religious book they believe).
• Everything they do is with “going to heaven” in mind, thus in some instances they don’t live today to the fullest.
• Christians promote selflessness, but isn’t a person’s whose life goal is to “make it to heaven” kind of being selfish? Would they do these “selfless” things if heaven wasn’t an option? Aren’t they only doing good deeds with their own agenda in mind?
• The Bible has no clear set of rules. There are the old “Mosaic” laws, there are things Jesus is quoted as saying that most Christians don’t even do (Give away all your possessions, for example), which really confuses new converts.

So many addicts have come from religious or quasi-religious families who put far too much pressure on their children to live up to unreasonable expectations. When problems did arise, they were laid at “God’s” feet. Put your faith in God and he will take care of everything. Live to the Christian standard. God will judge you if you don’t. Focus your life on God and you will be saved…. All of these pressures not only to conform, but to sometimes suppress natural human instincts is often too much to bear for some people. And God forbid if they didn’t interpret the Bible the way the rest of the church did.

For example, a man can’t look at a woman lustfully, or it is the same as if he had sex with her… at least according to the Bible. So say some hottie walks in the office, and ol’ Religious Tom sees her and runs back to the water cooler to avoid temptation. God forbid he gave her one second of admiration on a physical level or he’s on the fast track to H-E- double toothpicks.

What if ol’ Tom was still a single man and still a virgin? And horny? A good Christian would go home, take a cold shower, read the Bible and forget about these temptations. Sounds natural, eh? Problem is… what happens if he can’t resolve these physical feelings? No – he certainly can’t go home and “hand”le the situation for a little relief because that is sin. So what happens? The struggle between his religious beliefs and his natural sexual urges hit the battlefield. Even if he wins the battle, psychologically he’ll lose the war. The man becomes tormented by something that a five-minute stint in the bathroom could take care of.

If you’re a believer and have managed to get this far, I implore you… Go relieve yourself. Right now! Five minutes of “sin” would be far better than the torture you’ll go through if you try to just suppress your natural urges day in and day out. Get those five minutes out of the way, ask Santa, er um.. Jesus for forgiveness… and you can spend the next 23 hours and 55 minutes as a happy believer without those physical distractions.

How ridiculous is that anyway? But this leads me to the topic at hand (no pun intended), of the promises of life after death.

Living your life with promises of a reward in the afterlife is handing off the true enjoyment of being alive to something else - religion. Going outside on a beautiful spring day for a Christian is an appreciation of “God’s” work… in other words, it all goes back to earning enough brownie points to get into heaven. To a non-believer, it’s just a nice day to enjoy in all its glory – with no strings attached.

If you see a pretty girl, it’s not the devil tempting you in some sort of test that God is grading. It’s a pretty girl. That’s it. Admire that pretty face, flash her a smile, and move on. No strings attached.

We live in a world full of beauty and full of ugliness. Appreciate the beauty for what it is and acknowledge the ugly in the same manner.

Living with the thought that you are some kind of pawn being used between an invisible god and an invisible devil is just foolishness. Perhaps our ancestors needed to believe these things for some sort of comfort, or to fill in the blanks of the things they didn’t fully understand. We know better. So live your life to the fullest every day. Don’t hand it off to an imaginary friend and don’t make choices in life with promises of an afterlife dangling in front of you.

If there were a God that could make such promises, I guarantee you he would have made it very clear what he wanted us to do. He wouldn’t say he would return before all of his apostles tasted death, then relied on others to re-interpret that later. He wouldn’t say these are the end times… two thousand years ago. He wouldn’t allow science to disprove all of the scientifically disprovable references in the Bible. He wouldn’t allow dozens of religions to pop up. He wouldn’t allow the devil to traipse around messing up his creation.

Christians think that living for the moment is some sort of distraction by the devil, or some selfish mindset.

I believe there is no God, but that there is a devil of sorts. He steals people’s lives and fools them into false beliefs with false hopes.

The devil is religion.

Live every day to the fullest. Discover ways you can help humanity. Find ways to make yourself and others happy.

In other words, concentrate on life before death. Not after.

Wake up! We’re serving waffles today, and it’s only noon.

Rewind to 1989. No internet. The word “blog” simply didn’t exist. So how did we put our thoughts down in such primitive times? We wrote them down. Yes, I was a bigtime journal writer. Besides writing about the inane events of my life, I would often jot down quotes that jumped out at me. So here is a list of quotes gathered in my May-August 1989 journal that I recently discovered. Apparently I was watching a lot of Star Trek, news, and listening to The Doors. The are also some other random quotes I picked up in college at the time. Not all of the quotes are attributed. Maybe you know the origin?

“I don’t need to hear what you don’t need to say.”
Star Trek, The Next Generation, “The Icarus Factor” 1989

“Without irritation, there wouldn’t be any pearls.”
G. Wilder

“Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.”

“… a warm breeze after a summer rain storm.”

“If you make a good friend a summer, you’re doing pretty well.”

“Build me a great wall of love.”
Jim Kerr from Simple Minds’ “Wall of Love,” 1989

“Thought that is planned is tradition.
Thought that is unplanned is imagination.
That that is both is spirit.”
Old Sufi saying

“The size of your pencil doesn’t matter, it’s how you write your name.”

“Imagination becomes shape and form.”

“Fantasies are usually far superior to reality.”
I think I actually saw this in a documentary about porn. Haha!

“Keep totin’ that lunch pail. Keep making that $4.25 an hour.”
Wade Boggs, in response to hecklers chanting “Margo,” the name of his mistress at the time.

“Remember me,” she said
“I have no choice.”
Star Trek, Elaan of Troyius

“The sooner our happiness begins, the longer it will last.”
Star Trek, “The Paradise Syndrome”

“Cancel my subscription to the resurrection.”
Jim Morrison, “When the Music’s Over”

You live out your lives in the shell of flesh.
Star Trek, “Is There No Truth In Beauty?”

The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.
Star Trek, “Is There No Truth In Beauty?”

“I can see this being extremely popular in the year 2030.”
Unknown, about classical minimalism

“The 1980’s were a celebration of selfishness.”
Rush

“Theirs were faces of pilgrims on a journey.”
George H. W. Bush

“Beauty is transitory.”

“When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.”
Chinese proverb.

“…from the dunes of Kittyhawk to the dust of another world.”
President George H. W. Bush, July 20, 2989

“Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold.”
Chief Seattle, 1854

“Loneliness is a thirst, a flower dying in the desert.”
Star Trek, “Requiem for Methuselah”

“We’ll try to imagine what silence looks like.”
Prince, “If I Was Your Girlfriend”

“If they call an orange and orange, why don’t they call a banana a yellow?”
Reverend Jim from Taxi, “Going Home”

“Life without risks just isn’t life – it’s just existence.”

“The Revelation of the Method” is one of those “granddaddies of all conspiracy theories.” This is your standard elitist conspiracy theory in which an elite few are secretly pulling the strings on humanity and that they are slowly revealing this to us. We are becoming conditioned to learn and accept this control. Currently we are secret slaves to them, but over time we will become knowing slaves to them. This revelation is done in many ways, such as the “sacrifice” of Princess Diana, the events of 911, and hidden subliminal messages in the media.

It makes for great reading. Unfortunately some people actually believe it.

(more…)

Everyone has a “surefire” cure for hiccups. I loathe hiccups because I get them so violently that they cause pain to my stomach and throat. Fortunately for me, I have THE cure. I’ve been using this trick for well over 30 years and my family has been doing it much longer. It has never failed me. I’ve shown quite a few people, all of whom have given me that same look of doubt when I tell them… only to become believers when their hiccups disappeared moments later. I don’t take credit for it, only for passing it on to those of you who hate hiccups as much as I do.

You simply fill a glass with water. Take a washcloth and put it over the glass. Then you drink the water through the washcloth. Actually it should be more like sucking a bottle, ensuring you’ll get a lot of bubbles in the water. Do this for about 30 seconds. The harder you suck, the more bubbles are formed by the washcloth’s fibrous material, which is a good thing. So after 30 seconds, stop and see. I’d say 75% of the time they will already be gone. Once in a while you’ll need to do it again, but most often your hiccups will be gone in 30 seconds.

Before I even get started, allow me to say upfront that I’m not trying to sell you anything. I won’t ramble on and on about some huge “secret” to making money online, only to let you know you can purchase this secret in some cheesy ebook like so many others do.

I will tell you what you need to know, but be prepared that it might not be want you want to hear. 

It’s not easy and you will probably fail.

“Making money online” sounds like your generic web bait, aimed at every working stiff who thinks they can make billions by simply registering a domain name. I’ve been involved in web development and design since 1994, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people approach me with their million dollar ideas. Some people even had flow sheets, projected traffic reports – the whole nine yards. The excitement in their faces was brimming, yet fleeting. 

I have yet to see one of them succeed.

So the first thing you need to know when it comes to making money online is that you will probably fail at first. And all of your projections will most likely fall way short. It’s how you deal with that failure, what adjustments you make, and how much you persevere that will make a difference. Most people realize they’re failing and bail out at the first signs of trouble.

So with that in mind, let’s look at the issue a little closer. 

The first thing you need to do is have an idea of what you want to do. 

Let me stop here and say a word or two about Ebay, which seems to be the first choice of many people looking to make the jump. A lot of people continue to jump on the Ebay bandwagon. I suppose there is still money to be made there, though Ebay keeps raising its fees, and there are millions of people already out there doing it. My only suggestion for running a successful Ebay business is to try to find a niche. I knew a guy who made pretty good money selling beer taps on there, because that’s not something readily available to everyone. I’ve known other people who just post insane volumes of crap and make their money that way. That works too, but let me tell you, that’s a huge time investment. Not only do you have to find stuff you can sell for more than you purchase it for, but you have to photograph, upload, and describe each item. And many, if not most, of your items won’t sell at all. You’ll lose your listing fee and have to repost it again. With some items you’ll just have to bite the bullet and take a loss. But chances are if you’re even reading this paragraph and are considering an Ebay run, you’ve already made up your mind. So I can’t convince you anyway. Go ahead and try it. You might be the one person in 1000 that does well with it. And one final thought on Ebay… the people making the most money from Ebay are the ones selling the how-to books. That should be a red-flag right there. I’m no expert, though I have had an Ebay account since 1997. 

Aside from the auction world, making money for most people online comes down to one word: traffic. There is absolutely no way in the world you will make money without people going to your site, and in most cases you need a LOT of people going there. 

Whether it’s a site selling crankshafts or a full time blog, the only way you’ll make money is driving people to your site. 

There are many ways to generate traffic, and the more time you’re willing to put in, the better results you’ll have. Obviously you want to rank high on search engine results page. If someone goes to Google and searches for something you’re trying to sell, you really want to be as high as you can in those search results.

Read up on how Google ranks pages.

Make sure your site actually mentions the phrases you want to appear in search results, a couple of times would be even better. Learn how to include meta tags on your home page as well.

Other ways to gain traffic is to frequent other sites and blogs related to your own. Get involved in the discussion and casually mention your site when appropriate. That does not mean spamming your url in ever comment. A few other ways to increase traffic are:

• Create hyperlinks within your text, and not just to pages on your own site.
• Make sure your grammar is above par. This instantly adds credibility.
• Use a pay-per click program to advertise your site based on keywords or phrases. Google’s Adwords is the best example.
• Ask friends with websites, or even Myspace pages to link to you.
• If you are selling something, keep listings on Craigslist or Ebay.
• List your site or blog in appropriate directories.
• Include your url as a signature at the bottom of all emails.

Most of all, create enough content to keep people coming back for more. Look at the competition and be creative. You need to stand out in the crowd, especially if you’re getting into a crowded field.

So creating traffic is technically only half the battle, but it’s the most important half. Nothing else matters if you have no one visiting your website. I was once involved in the creation of a pretty high-end sports website. Technically it was brilliant and graphically it was beautiful. Problem is… we had no traffic. All of that work meant nothing without visitors.

On the flipside, I was also involved in another sports website was very plain and visually sub-par. Even though there were thousands of other sites with the same material, we had the traffic to beat them all. We had a great url and thousands of links back to us. This of course was a business, so we did spend money advertising it online and in direct mail. We also had been around for 10 years, which accounts for something: longevity and perseverance.

Once you garner traffic, you must then convert that traffic to cash, and there are five primary ways to do this.

1. Google Adwords. This is a service in which ads are placed on your site by Google, and whenever a visitor clicks the ad, you get paid.

2. Direct advertising. If you start generating traffic, you will most likely get inquiries from companies wishing to advertise. A banner at the top of the page for example, might be worth $100 a month to you. Or $500.

3. Affiliate sales. Set up an affiliate account at Amazon or Barnes and Noble and be sure to link to products whenever appropriate in your text. You will receive a piece of each sale.

4. Donations. You don’t have to beg for it, but there are people out there who might deeply appreciate your site and wish to help keep it going with a little donation.

5. Your product sales. If you are in business to sell something, obviously this will most likely make up the bulk of your online income. If you’re simply blogging, you may not have any products at all to sell.

You can have all of those streams of income working at the same time… in fact that is recommended. The amount of traffic you generate will directly affect the amount of sales you produce.

Making money online is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It will take time to see results, and many people are weeded out simply by not sticking with it. If you believe in what you are doing, and are willing to put the time and effort into it, you will almost certainly make money online.

Maybe not a fortune… but something.

What do you get when you cross a political science college minor with someone who has spent over a decade crunching numbers for sports handicappers… and apply that to this year’s electoral college in the general election for President?

5 McCain Victories
5 with no winner but a McCain edge
1 with no winner but an Obama/Clinton edge
1 Tie

These are not predictions, but instead numbers generated based on historical analysis of each state. Let’s break down each of the 12 scenarios. Click on each link to see the data used for each scenario.

Scenario 1a – 269-269 Electoral Tie
This merely takes each state’s voting history for the past 5 elections and awards the party with the most victories the electoral votes this year. For example, Alaska has voted Republican in the past 5 elections, so McCain is awarded Alaska’s 3 electoral votes in 2008. This scenario does include borderline states, such as Arkansas, which voted Republican 3 times and Democrat 2 times.

Scenario 1b – 199 McCain – 255 Obama/Clinton
This uses the same data as Scenario 1a, but removes borderline states.

Scenario 2a – 278 McCain – 260 Obama/Clinton
Again, we’re using the same data as Scenario 1a, but this time we’re going back the past 7 elections, which includes the Reagan 1980 and 1984 victories in the averages. Borderline states are included.

Scenario 2b – 269 McCain – 102 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 2a, but excluding borderline states.

Scenario 3a – 414 McCain – 124 Obama/Clinton
Scenario #3 takes a look at how likely a state is to vote for the incumbent party versus the non-incumbent party, going back to 1988. In this situation, we are calling Republicans the incumbent party and Democrats the non-incumbent party. Most states are borderline in this category.

Scenario 3b – 42 McCain – 0 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 3a, but removing borderline states. As you can see, most electoral votes are not counted with this method.

Scenario 4a – 438 McCain – 100 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 3a, but going back to 1980. McCain is given a bigger boost with this method.

Scenario 4b – 56 McCain – 0 Obama/Clinton
Scenario 4a data is used, but omitting borderline states.

Scenario 5a – 274 McCain – 264 Obama/Clinton
Scenarios 5 and 6 are perhaps the most interesting, as they combine states voting history by party with their likelihood to vote for the incumbent or non-incumbent party. The race tightens up here, but the edge goes to McCain. Again borderline states are included and this data goes back to 1988.

Scenario 5b – 172 McCain – 88 Obama/Clinton
The same data as Scenario 5a, but with borderline states omitted.

Scenario 6a – 274 McCain – 88 Obama/Clinton
Again, the same as Scenario 5a, but using a data pool going back to 1980, and includes borderline states.

Scenario 6b – 172 McCain – 13 Obama/Clinton
Scenario 6a data but with borderline states omitted.

He’s coming! For those who believe in him and who have been good, Santa will come and give his wondrous gifts. Billions believe in him, and you should too! If you are on his “good” list, you will receive his gifts on the appointed day, but you never know when he’ll show up. He knows everything – even your thoughts - and can tell if you’ve been good or bad. He loves everyone and wants everyone to be good. He lives forever and sits on a throne atop the world.

All hail Santa!

Now… let’s change two words in the paragraph above…

He’s coming! For those who believe in him and who have been good, Jesus will come and give his wondrous gifts. Billions believe in him, and you should too! If you are on his “good” list, you will receive his gifts on the appointed day, but you never know when he’ll show up. He knows everything – even your thoughts - and can tell if you’ve been good or bad. He loves everyone and wants everyone to be good. He lives forever and sits on a throne atop the world.

All hail Jesus!

True Christians don’t like the concept of Santa Claus, because he is a lie and never really existed. Atheists say the same about Jesus, mind you. And as you can see above, Santa replaces Jesus in quasi-Christian families.

To non-believers, however, Santa is merely the training wheels on the road to blind faith, and belief in many lies and deities that lie ahead.

Also see this cartoon.

As obvious as the information below is, I couldn’t seem to find some of it easily online. So if you’re looking for the ages of presidents when they left office, here is a good chart for you. For a discussion about how recent presidents have aged, take a look at this recent blog post.

You can find the chart presidents here.

From late 2004 to early March 2005, I was curious the first time certain words or phrases appeared online. I turned to the old Usenet archives and did my searches there, sorting my results chronologically and finding the earliest reference to each item. There is no logic to the terms I chose, but just whatever peaked my curiosity. Toward the end of the list you see “Year xxxx” in which I chose to search for that phrase instead of just the number of the year itself, which would have yielded random numbers.

I also went back recently and spot double-checked this list to see if anything had changed. The only change I found was that “September 11, 2001″ had been mentioned in a prediction in 2000, and that post has since completely disappeared. I don’t buy into conspiracy theories, but that sure would fuel the fire for those who do!

You can find this list here.