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A
whole bunch of ezines you send to your subscribers are being trashed. Filtering software has been spreading like wildfire from ISP to ISP. The decisions these programs make are beyond your control. The question is, “Are you out of business?” 1049 words; 6.2K
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Thanks for listening!

Bob
_______________________________

SPAM FILTERS ARE CRIPPLING EZINES By Bob McElwain

The growing use of software to filter incoming email to an ISP has added an unanswerable question: How many subscribers receive your ezine? For several years now, I’ve ignored subscriber list totals. The data is fuzzy when you look at numbers held, numbers not delivered, and so forth. I track only the number of successful deliveries. However, this number is now much less meaningful.

Many (most?) ISPs have installed email filters to block spam and that other stuff I can’t mention for fear of being blocked. If those filters bounced back to the mailing service, the addresses could be eliminated. Most are only trashed into the big black hole of cyberspace. So there’s no telling how many don’t get through.

Some are bounced back to me personally. Unfortunately, no email address is provided, so I can’t remove it from my list. I get a particular hoot out of this, when they’ve blocked my newsletter, calling it spam. I wonder what they’re calling the stuff they send to me.

Moral Irresponsibility In Action

Such software is a great example of irresponsibility in action. And the lack of ethics and morality of which we see far too much. The ‘gods’ (programmers?) have decreed we’re at the mercy of computer algorithms which are primitive at best.

Analyzing the meaning of a statement in English with a computer is still in its infancy, even though many powerful minds have been working at it for many years. Current software assumes related problems have been resolved, which is absurd.

Here’s What Has Happened To Me

Beginning in November in 2001, I began to notice a fall off in responses to “STAT News.” Both to ads, and comments emailed to me. I didn’t pay much attention at first, for things like this fluctuate.

But I did check seriously in December. Definitely down in both areas. During January and February, I was pretty much out of things due to some heavy surgery. I didn’t really get back up to speed until March. By then, the downtrend in the response rate over November last year was very noticeable. Certainly in excess of 15% by any measure.

Blocking Software To The Rescue?

By March, it was also clear spam blocking software was the current rage. I believe this accounts for the drop in response I have seen. Here’s why.

Email response to the newsletter dropped by the same percentage as ad response. I track ad response accurately with software. So the only place for error in making this statement is in misjudging email response. My answer to that was to check trash and count. The percentages were almost identical, although there’s not enough data to be certain.

If only ad response had dropped off, I’d have decided I needed new ads. But when both dropped by the same percentage, I had to charge it off to the spam filters.

An Up Close And Personal Experience

My ISP installed a filtering package along about April of this year. I was “automatically” enrolled. This meant I got to visit the site and look at the blocked mail. Much more time consuming than doing so in my mailing program. Curious, however, I let it run for a time.

Surprise! Over a 9 day period, I found almost 30 messages from acquaintances, friends, peers, visitors, and subscribers blocked. Beyond notifying them that it happened, I was completely unable to say why. My hunch was, and remains, inadequate computing routines. Or inadequate programmers creating them.

When I’d had enough, I turned the filters off. Guess I should be thankful I had that option. Shoot, some folks that mean a lot to me, only write a couple times a year. And I sure don’t want to miss these messages.

Another List

I maintain a mailing list of people to whom I send my articles each week. In one mailing, about half a dozen were sent back to me from AOL. Reason: Invalid DNS pointers. Gee. I wonder how visitors are reaching my site.

As mentioned, most of the mail filtered out is simply trashed. So there’s no way to get a handle on this problem. I’d willingly delete email addresses, if they were returned to me. But if these packages wanted to play fair, they’d bounce to my mail list server. But being fair is not their objective.

Alternatives

Many have decided to send only a brief message that points to a URL for an HTML version of the ezine. This won’t work for all subscribers. Many don’t want to move from handling email to jump onto the Web. Page views will demonstrate wether or not this is so for you.

Another plan is to refer to an autoresponder for a copy of the current issue. I don’t see how this helps, for the content mailed will have to get through the same filter your newsletter would have faced directly.

Further, both ideas fail when the filtering catches something in the headers it doesn’t like. As with AOL claiming my DNS pointers were flawed. Or a blacklisted IP address. How to beat such happenings is totally beyond me.

A Possible Maybe

I know many don’t like attachments, but here’s a thought. Send a message which has no content. Just identify the newsletter in the subject field by name. (It has been suggested we use our full name in the From field, but I’ve been doing this routinely.)

Let the message contain only the URL to your HTML version. And include a .TXT version as an attachment. A click will load it to an editor on most systems. Again, though, if the “obscene” content is in the header, the message won’t go through.

My Plan

I see no better alternative than to continue to grow my list and mail to it. I’ll simply have to factor in a number for those arbitrarily trashed. If those into this kind of thing come up with a number, my hunch is that it will be about 25%.

When I adjust my email and ad response by 25%, the numbers agree with those in pervious years. Not fact, of course. But suggestive.

Whatever this number proves to be, I’ll live with it. And seek to be content with the percentage delivered.

Bob McElwain, author of “Your Path To Success” and “Secrets To A Really Successful Website.” For info, see

A delicious, mouth-watering piece of sweetened candy is a treat that tempts everyone. Whether it’s a spicy cinnamon candy a hard watermelon candy that just bursts with flavor as soon as it placed inside your mouth; candy is a treat that you enjoy and deserve.

Soft candy, chewy candy, chocolate and fruit candy are all available today over the internet at great prices. Whether it’s chocolate, hard candy or mouth melting cotton candy, it’s hard to turn down a sweet treat. For an instant burst of energy just pop a smooth, sweet piece of chocolate into your mouth. Kids love the sour/sweet candy combination and who doesn’t enjoy munching on warm chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk.

The ingredients that go into making candy are extremely important. Quality sugars, flavors and other ingredients all help to shape and form a wonderful, delicious treat. Candy has been around for a long time and adding enjoyment to both young and old. Remember Grandfather’s horehounds? Yes, people still enjoy them.

Only deal with quality makers of candy and chocolates that use the finest, freshest quality ingredients and that are offered at reasonable prices.

About the Author

Mike Yeager
Publisher
http://www.a1-candy-4u.com/
mjy610@hotmail.com

A book in Scholastic’s Dear America series, Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift by Kathryn Lasky is the heartwarming story of an endearing family coping with the adversity of the Great Depression.
A book in Scholastic’s Dear America series, Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift by Kathryn Lasky is the heartwarming story of an endearing family coping with the adversity of the Great Depression. The story is told through the diary of Minerva Swift, youngest of four sisters and the second-youngest child in her family. If you can suspend your disbelief that an eleven-year-old would write an average of five pages of flawless prose every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you are in for a treat.

The Swifts live in Indianapolis in 1932. Although they are struggling less than most families (some of whom we glimpse both in the Swifts’ neighborhood and in the shantytowns), they do have to adjust their lifestyle — their menus, their purchases, their activities. As Minnie astutely observes, “I think that there has never been such a collision between realness and fantasy. It is as if we are standing with our feet in the muck and grime of these hard times but our noses are pressed up against the window of some fantastically glamorous world.”

Indeed, the juxtaposition of reality and fantasy pervades the book. People gather around the radio to listen to Jack Benny, Buck Rogers, or The Shadow; they go to the movies that provide an inexpensive, though temporary, escape from their troubles. They look for some magic to change the conditions of their existence. Willie Faye, an orphaned cousin who comes from the Dust Bowl of Texas to live with the Swifts, looks to faith rather than to magic for the change. (Despite this — and the fact that the book deals with the month leading up to Christmas — Christmas After All is not a religious book. It should be appropriate for use in a public school classroom.)

In Christmas After All we see a family showing optimism in the face of hardship, humor in the face of fear. Family members must determine when frivolities become necessities — and they show great resourcefulness in making gifts and fashioning new clothes. Christmas After All gives a vivid picture of life during the Great Depression, and it holds lessons for all of us — especially during our challenging economic times.

About the Author

A parent and former teacher, Fran Hamilton is the author of Hands-On English, which gives quick access to English fundamentals and uses icons for parts of speech (for anyone 9 years or older, including adults). Fran also publishes LinguaPhile (a free monthly e-mail newsletter for people who teach and/or enjoy English) and Acu-Write (a free weekly e-mail tip sheet for people who want to improve their writing of English). Both are available through Yahoo Groups.

When people ask me where I am from I often reply jokingly, “I’m from the Movie Planet.’ That’s what I reckon people from other planets would call us here on Earth. How many movies have I watched in my life? How many hours have I sat in front of a small or big screen watching a story unfold, acted out by my fellow species? The answer is almost inconceivable. We worship film as an arena to learn, dream, escape, and even vicariously live our lives from. We pay actors millions of dollars, more than doctors as well as nearly all the rest of us, and a lot of us see them as superhuman beings that are a step above the rest in our perceived realm of mundane normality that we have constructed our lives in. A lot of the time the result of this belief structure causes a lot of pain for these ‘famous’ souls who would rather just live a normal life outside their work. The hounding paparazzi definitely don’t make the actors feel superhuman!

Look, I like watching movies a lot, maybe even more than the ‘average person’, I just wonder about the relationship we have with this imagined reality we so often connect with. We choose to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on some movies like ‘Independence Day’ that end up being bombs in the box office, while there are billions of people in true reality on Earth who have nothing to eat. It seems like madness if you look at it from that angle. Do we watch these visions of ‘ourselves’ doing things so that we don’t have to think about what hard work we have to do in our real lives?

Even as I sit here on a Friday afternoon I am wondering if I should grab a DVD tonight to watch as an attempt to relax at home after a pretty hard working week. The funny thing is if I grab the ‘wrong’ type of movie, I may end up more stressed out than I am right now! So, am I addicted to these things? Are we all? I’ll let you think about it. To focus on the positive side of things, we must realize that we can learn so much from our experiences with the movies. We wouldn’t have become obsessed over nothing, now would we? I myself learn a lot and get to experience many emotions during the engrossing visual experience. I mean, I do have a big enough range of feelings in my real life, but it’s kind of cool being able to be in ‘The Matrix’ (maybe we already are?), or to be ‘Spiderman’ for a day, or maybe live in a weird world like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ for a few hours.

If you do love movies, these days there is one place to go that you can find out just about nearly anything and everything about a film, and even watch trailers of the shows. It’s called the Internet Movie Database or IMDB. Google it, or look for it on your other search engine. I believe this website started up very small from someone who just wanted to talk about movies. Now, it receives over 25 million ‘visits’ a month. It literally has everything you ever need to know about films. It gives biographies on movies, the actors and directors involved, as well as comments and ratings from people who have wanted to express their feelings about the films in question. For some of the movies, especially new ones that haven’t opened in theatres yet, there are previews and trailers you can watch right at your computer to tell you if you really think you should go and see it or not.

There’s also cool lists made up by visitors to the site like ‘Top 250 films’, and ‘100 worst films of all time’. There are articles related to the movie industry as well as many other interesting categories to look at like ‘Independent films’ and ‘Award winners’. Really, you’ve got to check it out yourself to see what I mean.

Whether you think movies are a great achievement by humanity to learn and be entertained with, or an obsession that has gone way too far, it looks as though they are here to stay. The questions remain: Is your life as good as the movies you watch? If you spend as much time in virtual reality as reality itself, what planet do you really come from?

By Jesse S. Somer
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net
Jesse S. Somer could be a character in the best script ever written.

By: Richard Dolmat

Now that you’ve spent hours and days and weeks and months recording your musical masterpieces (and you’ve also read my article “Tips for a Great Recording Session”), you have arrived at my favorite time in the studio; The Mixdown.
But don’t think your job is done yet! The mixdown is just as important as recording. As an artist, you have to approach the mixdown from an artist’s point of view and stay on the ‘creative’ side of the fence where it’s still possible to shape and mold your songs throughout the mixdown process.
Remember the old “Yin-Yang” principle which states, “whenever you turn something up, something else disappears. Furthermore; whenever you turn something down, something else gets louder”. This applies to EQ, levels and almost anywhere you have two or more tracks.

The Beginning Of The End

STOP!! Don’t even think about starting your mixdown on the same day you finish tracking. Take a day off, have a break and then come back refreshed with a new perspective.

Now back to business…

First of all, let’s “zero the board”. This is simply the action of bringing all the faders to the bottom (-∞) and centering all the pan knobs and effects sends.
I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “but our mix sounded good when we were tracking!”.
OK, but did the mix actually sound good or were you just accustomed to hearing it that way? That’s why zero-ing the board is important. It flushes your memory and allows you to start from scratch. It might even be better to mix a song that you finished recording a while back.

1. Get Kicked.
This is where I prefer to start. Other people like to start with the vocals and build around them. But I’m more rhythm based and prefer to start with the kick drum.
One tricky part of any mix is getting a good gain-stage structure where you don’t clip the master faders at the end of your mixing session when all your instrument faders are raised. We must be careful to keep watching the master bus clipping lights to make sure they never get into the red. Here is why the kick is a good place to start.
Play your songs and watch the master bus VU meters. This is probably the only time you will “mix with your eyes”. As you’re watching the master VU meter, slowly raise the kick fader until the master meter reads about -7dB. If you are a four piece band, then you can leave the kick there and move on. But if you have a really dense tune, then you may have to lower the kick to -8dB or so (to leave room for all the other instruments as they come up).
Now you are set to mix. The kick should be the only channel that you set levels by watching. Every other channel mixed into the song will be with your ears relative to the kick.

2. Moving On
From now on, it’s pretty much a free-for-all. Some people like to move on to the bass next, in order to find the balance for the low-end of the song. Other people like to keep working on the drum kit “as a whole” before moving to other instruments. I prefer to move onto the drum kit over-head mics.
They say that a great drum kit sound can be captured using only two over-head mics, and a kick mic. And it’s true. Some of my tunes only use three mics on the final mixed versions, even though we had used up to ten mics for the recording of the kit.
If you placed your over-head mics properly (i.e.: so the snare sounds centered in the stereo image, and not skewed to the left or right speaker) then you will have a better stereo image of the drum kit when the mix is finished. Otherwise you might have to do some fancy panning or EQ to get a balanced image with the drum kit.
You can now bring in the rest of the kit underneath the over heads to fill out the sound. I prefer to leave EQ and effects to the very end of the mix, after all of the instruments are playing. Try to place your toms in the same panning position as the overhead mics recorded them. If your floor tom in the overheads is to the right at 3 o’clock then pan your individual floor tom fader to the same position.
And don’t forget to check your phase between your mics pointing down and your mics pointing up.

3. Big Bottom
Now I like to add in the bass. Nothing too important here if you have good source audio. I’m also a huge side-chaining fan. I LOVE to side-chain the bass with the kick so the low end frequencies wouldn’t fight for space in the mix. It just makes things sound “tighter”. Sometimes you may have to eq the lowest of the lows out of the kick in order to make a little more room for the bass to sit in the mix.

4. Pads and More
Here is where I add the “pad” type of sounds. These are sounds that usually have longer sustains and hold the chords of the song. Sounds like strings, sustained electric guitar chords, synth pads, and maybe even some rhythm acoustic guitars are great foundation instruments.
I like to lay these instruments on top of the drums and bass tracks we have already mixed. You can get very creative with the panning of these sounds and create a wide stereo field. This will help make your mix interesting by allowing your lead instruments and vocals sit in the center of your stereo image, attracting attention to themselves.

5. The Vox
Let’s finally add the vocals. I usually start off with the lead vocal, and then place all the harmony and background vocals underneath the lead. Sometimes, you can end up putting the vocal a little too high in the mix, and a great way to check this is to turn your monitors way down and listen to the mix at an almost inaudible level. This way of listening to your mix will surprise you, but you have to be confident and trust your ears. If something sounds disproportionately loud at this quiet level, then it is too loud. If you must, then you can compress the vocals too, but that really depends on the song’s style. Maybe a few fader rides are a better choice then some static compression.

6. The Rest
You can start adding effects and other fancy shmancy things to your tune. Get funky with automating some pan knobs, fade-in some pads etc.. Here is a good time to get creative.
It’s also a very good time to actively listen and re-adjust your mix. Is the kick too loud? Should I put some higher frequencies on the bass? Should I compress the backing vocals more? Is the coffee finally ready?
When you feel you have a good mix, burn it to CD and listen to it EVERYWHERE! In the car, in the bath, at home, on the TV set, at your friend’s place etc., and make a lot of notes. And at the end, if all your notes cancel out, then you are finished!

©2005 Richard Dolmat (Digital Sound Magic)
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About The Author
Richard Dolmat is owner, engineer and producer for the Vancouver based recording studio Digital Sound Magic. Visit his site at: http://www.digitalsoundmagic.com

Hook up both of everybody’s greatest leisure actvities and what you will unmask is a phenomenon named a web based sportsbook. Well: what could be more resourceful? Fancy a mix of people rooting for a given chosen favorite lineup, and constantly stakes are bound to be fixed tied to the noise. Set to participate in of the pleasure, on-lookers regularly try to conjecture who will prevail the running fight. This all develops into a matey little fight named web based sportsbook.

Click here for the best online sport betting uk action!

It may easily seem to be addicting however, sports wagering is essentially purely an amusement and of forging a bond with fellow sports aficionados. Here, you’ll be able to bet a a slight quantity of wampum and nonetheless enjoy an extravagant time. Looking further, here are some basics to get started sports wagering.

To bet, you will probably want to call on a web based sportsbook, that’s to say a place which offers web based sportsbook. In America, there’s currently a total of four states where to do sports wagering officially, but if you don’t care for legality, you may try it essentially anywhere provided that you can hunt out a bookie and you’re of legal age. The sports you can bet money on are professional + college football and basketball, professional baseball, professional hockey, + wagers on both dog and horse racing. Clients can bet money on the entire result of a fight or game, at which point a given opponent will be defeated, and even whether a given tossed coin in a fight or game will come out either heads or tails.

The bookies firm count on mere figures to help you judge which lineup you feel is most likely will prevail. First off, there’s the spread, which is a points advantage allocated to a inferior party anticipated to go under by a specific number points. This is the odds maker’s well-known way of offering stakes for a Sportsbook. By way of an example a punter might bet on a lineup anticipated to go under and and nonetheless make money on the wager provided that the party is actually beaten by a specific number of points.

We can select innumerable types of antes, the straight bets, where you simply quote the side which you think will prevail or go under being the most common in sports wagering.

So why don’t you just conduct some test runs and entertain yourself for good measure? Just be sure that you won’t get overpowered and kill your complete pension plan on a fancy… If not, you will catch yourself contrite for life…

1. COMMIT TO CREATING YOUR NEWSLETTER

A Web site without a newsletter is like a car without a motor. It may look nice, but you’re not going to get very far.

In order to market your business effectively you need a system to attract prospects and then you need a system to follow up with those prospects repeatedly to convert them into customers. An electronic newsletter is an inexpensive and very effective way to do that.

2. TARGET A SPECIFIC GROUP OF PROSPECTS

You can’t be all things to all people. Select a specific group of prospects to write your newsletter to. When reading your newsletter, your prospects should say, ‘They’re talking about me and my concerns!’

3. DON’T SPAM PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT YOUR NEWSLETTER

Your subscribers should voluntarily opt-in to receive your newsletter. Describe the benefits of your newsletter, and provide a simple way for people to subscribe to it.

Don’t just add people to your list without their permission or send it out to people who didn’t ask for it. That’s called spam, and you’ll be building a bad reputation if you resort to it.

4. GIVE YOUR SUBSCRIBERS AN EASY WAY TO UNSUBSCRIBE

When people don’t wish to receive your newsletter any longer, they should have an easy way to unsubscribe.

Provide the information your subscribers need to unsubscribe, if they want to, right in your newsletter.

5. FOCUS ON A SPECIFIC THEME

Your newsletter should be centered around a theme that relates to your products or services and is of high interest to your prospects and customers.

Our theme for this Give to Get Marketing newsletter is focused around tips to help you market your business more effectively. That ties in perfectly with what you want, and it ties in perfectly with the marketing products we offer.

Maria’s theme for her Get Organized Now! newsletter is focused around tips to help you get organized. Her products are organizing products — a perfect match.

Someone who sells cosmetics would create a newsletter theme that focuses on beauty and fashion tips.

Get the idea? What would your theme be?

6. 80% HELPFUL CONTENT, 20% PROMOTION

No one wants to receive and read a newsletter filled only with product promotions — and they won’t.

We teach the Give to Get Marketing philosophy — Give your prospects and customers what they want, and you’ll get what you want.

Fill your newsletter with helpful information that your prospects and customers would actually want to read, maybe even look forward to receiving

Of course, you also want to include information about your products and services, so be sure to provide one or two offers in each issue of your newsletter.

80% content, 20% promotion is a good mix.

7. DELIVER IT ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE

You can deliver your newsletter once a month, twice a month, or once a week.

The more frequently you can send out your newsletter to your prospect/customer list, the more effective it will be. You’ll have to decide how often you want to commit to this marketing effort. The important thing is to be consistent.

8. ASK YOUR READERS FOR FEEDBACK

Your newsletter should be written for your subscribers to address their interests — not yours.

To determine if you’re delivering what your subscribers want, ask them. Let them know that you want their feedback and suggestions on how you can improve your newsletter to make it a more valuable resource for them.

9. DIRECT YOUR READERS BACK TO YOUR WEB SITE

The point of all your effort of creating and sending out your newsletter, is to follow up with your prospects and customers to gain their trust and their business. Give to Get.

If your product or service information is on your Web site, then you must direct your subscribers to your Web site in each issue.

You can do that by directing them to an article on your Web site that they may find appealing, or you can guide them directly to your product information pages.

The last thing you want to do, is just send out a newsletter filled with terrific content, and then fail to get the kind of action you need to grow your business.

Joe Gracia - Give to Get Marketing http://www.givetogetmarketing.com

Paul Becker is publisher of the FREE Weekly Fitness Tips Newsletter at http://www.trulyhuge.com. Paul’s newsletter provides weekly e-mail tips on bodybuilding, health, and fitness. When you sign up for Paul’s free newsletter, you will be automatically entered in his monthly drawing to win free supplements and other great prizes.

Sign up now by e-mailing mailto:newsletter@trulyhuge.com

KH: How important has publishing an ezine been to your business?

PB: First of all, let me establish the fact that building a list is critical to your success online. It’s a very inexpensive means of developing a relationship with people who are interested in your product, service, or opportunity - potential customers or clients!

KH: How long have you been running an ezine and how many subscribers do you have?

PB: I started my email newsletter almost three years ago. I currently have 120,000 subscribers and growing.

KH: Do you submit your ezine to directories and/or announcement lists and if so how effective has this been in gaining new subscribers to your publication?

PB: I have done this on a very limited basis and got limited results.

KH: Do you write and use your own articles to promote your ezine? How valuable has writing articles been in promoting your ezine?

PB: Yes, I write my own articles and use articles by other authors, I think my subscribers like to get different viewpoints on things.

KH: What methods do you use to promote your products or services within your ezine?

PB: Ads in the newsletter, and articles such as interviews with the person who developed the product or product reviews.

KH: How do you go about preparing your ezine for publication?

PB: I simply write and edit it in MSWord.

KH: Any advice to future ezine publishers? Things to look out for or things to concentrate on when publishing an ezine?

PB: Getting new subscribers should be the focus of your web site. I think many people mistakenly believe that people will return to their site on a regular basis. So, if they won’t keep coming back to you, you’ve got to go to them - by email!

Probably the most important thing you can do is to have subscribe information on your homepage (the first page of your site). And don’t make it hard for them to figure out how to subscribe!

Article © 2002 by writer Ken Hill. **Promote Your Online Business** by publishing your own e-mail newsletter. Our fun new e-book will show you how! Write irresistible content, gain TONS of subscribers, and watch your sales go UP, UP, UP. Complete money back guarantee. Learn more NOW at: http://www.scstats.com/r.cfm?i=4274

Stud poker is poker in which the first round of cards, and often the last, is dealt face down and the others face up. 7 card stud poker is a variant of this, which has become more popular since the American Civil War.

With 7 card stud poker the dealer starts by dealing each player a combination of a face up and a face down card, the online poker games played at virtual casinos normally consist of between 4 and 8 players.

Once the first wager goes into the pot, each player in turn can either fold, call, or raise (and eventually re-raise if there’s a raise beforehand). As is good virtual casino etiquette try not to bet out of turn since this not only disrupts the flow of the game but it will also give away important information about your poker hand.

Read more:7-card Stud Poker

About the Author

Chen Ching-feng is a successful writer and online gambling expert

providing valuable tips and advice for those interested in 7-card stud poker, poker tournaments, and online poker rooms.

His numerous articles found on virtual casino web ,provide useful and factual gambling information and insight.

The country has a budget crisis. But in perspective, there are many more problems that are much worse.
WASHINGTON, DC (Spetnik.com) - Today I would like to discuss the nation’s budget crisis. It is time that we, the uneducated voter, decided to take a look at the way the government is spending money and try to understand it. For example, the government runs the postal service. The postal service is more than just stamps and mail carriers. Postal union regulations require that the government provide all sorts of items to employees, such as automatic assault weapons for when they snap (which reminds me that it’s been a while since that has happened, so if you must enter a post office, wear a bulletproof vest - odds are that a shooting will occur within the next week).

You know, it seems that the safety of Americans who go to the post office is a bit more important than the budget, so let’s leave the budget for a minute. Why is it always the postal workers that go “postal”? I think that instead of showing us numbers and tax proposals, political candidates should tell us how they plan to implement post office reform. In case any politicians are reading this article, let me give you my plan (you are free to use it, provided that you mention me in your inaugural speech). I propose that before a postal worker is hired, he be required to serve a mandatory jail sentence, half the term usually sentenced to convicted postal workers. This way, if a postal worker does go on a rampage, he already has half of his rehabilitation out of the way, thereby giving him a quicker return to normal society. In addition, should he finish his postal career without killing anybody, government scientists would add additional years to his life, equal to the prison term served before his employment. I believe that this way, postal workers would have extra incentive to stay sane.

In the event that government scientists do not yet have a method to extend an individual’s lifetime (I think they do - haven’t you seen Strom Thurmond?), I have a second method of postal reform. This one involves labor union laws. You see, I did some “research” into the U.S. Postal Service, and I “discovered” some interesting “facts”. One major discovery was that postal union regulations require employees to work in slow-motion. This is why it takes them half-an-hour to sell you a stamp (if you wouldn’t specify your favorite stupid designer stamp, it would only take twenty minutes and save time for the other customers on line). They are required to do this in order so that the government will have to hire more employees and the union bosses will thereby make more money. Now, when you work in slow-motion, you have time to think. You have time to focus on who you hate. You have time to think about how many people you can shoot in the allotted time for postal rampages. All a politician wishing to implement postal reform would have to do would be to abolish this slow-motion union rule. This way, less employees will be needed and they will be to busy working to think about killing people. For this plan to work, you may also need to pay off the union bosses to make up for the money they will lose now that the postal service no longer needs so many workers.

Now, I know this plan is not perfect. You may ask, “Well, it’s great that the postal workers will be too busy to kill people, but what about all the employees that will now be laid off as a result of the increased performance? They will have nothing to do and will have even more time to think about killing people.” It is because of questions like this that you will never make a good politician. You must realize that you must draw the line somewhere. A good politician draws lots of lines. Sometimes the lines are straight, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they get intertwined and result in attractive drawings. These people are usually drawing the wrong type of lines. I am talking about abstract lines, not physical lines. Lines that say things. Lines that do things and make things happen. But this is not about lines, it is about policy. And about the budget crisis. Maybe we’ll get to that next time.

About the Author

Aaron currently works as a software/web developer and writes in his free time. He also runs a growing web-based discussion forum at http://www.chitchatforums.com. His personal work is on display at http://www.spetnik.com.