Better Business Bureau: Criminal Extortion Racket

Better Business Bureau: High-Ranking Members May Face Charges

The Better Business Bureau, often mistaken by ill-informed consumers for a "consumer protection" agency, is under fire in the latest chapter in a series of flare-ups involving irate small business owners who are becoming increasingly vocal in expressing their unanimous belief that the BBB and the individuals who grow rich charging businesses for "protection" are guilty of the felonious crimes of fraud, extortion and racketeering.



 Many of the small business owners whose companies have been the subjects of BBB bullying and fraud are joining together to present a united front against the criminal enterprise in hopes of amassing sufficient lobbying power to have federal prosecutor issue a blanket indictment against hundreds of individuals on whom the working class believes it has proof of criminal association based upon their Better Business Bureau ties.

"Essentially, the BBB is a criminal enterprise consisting of parasites of men who don't work for a living, opting instead to target those who do work and threaten to lie and besmirch their hard work, hopes and dreams if they refuse to hand over their wallets in a 'pay for protection', traditional Mafioso-style extortion scheme," ~ Fat Lester - GoDOTyourself Enterprises

Many with common sense and the ability to think independently of a herd are the most adamant that anyone and everyone with recent BBB affiliations go to prison racketeers and extortionists who don't care about honesty or credibility so long as there are suckers out there dumb enough to think they're anything but a criminal racket and cowardly enough to succumb to their threats/extortion.




Entire national organization should be under indictment with plans to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any member past or present who (obviously won't be testifying against them in either criminal or civil court) and who has ever taken part, either directly or indirectly in an extortion scheme involving the deliberate spreading of lies, distortions and/or falsehoods with respect to a privately-held company in order to coerce the owner of said company to grease the pockets of those spreading said lies as a means of offering incentive for them to cease harassment of a given victim-organization.

When criminals band together and claim to be acting in the best interests of the consumer, those are some of the instances in which the consumer had better either run fast or bend over, grab the ankles tight and brace himself because what comes next is neither pleasant nor believable, but it is real.

Gun Ban News: Tulane Students Cite "Widespread Rape" in Calls for Security

Tulane's Campus Gun Ban Leads to "Widespread Rape" of Female Students

Tulane University's female students have been among if not the most commonly raped demographic of people in the entire world for at least a decade now. When I was a student at the institution, I took note of this, and being a women's rights advocate did the only rational thing I could think to do: request the school eliminate its campus-wide gun ban in an editorial which was featured I the campus newspaper.
Thinking I'd done a good deed in helping protect the poor women being victimized while leaving campus, you can imagine my surprise the next week when I saw this: http://www.thehullabaloo.com/views/article_5021235c-7d42-56b3-9425-f25942f0800a.html.

The paper received a record 450 responses by the print deadline and countless more afterwards. They dedicated the entire op/ed page to the least vulgar of the hate mail that poured in for weeks afterwards. I received one email from a fellow student who commended me for standing up to the liberal institution and fighting for what is right.

For what it's worth (for those who read the hate mail linked to above), Kira McAllister refused to accompany me on my walk home from campus. I did email her and request that she do so.

The fact that this has gone on for a decade because the criminal waiting two blocks away have guns and the students do not is heinous and I hope that eventually one of those rape victims has the courage to sue the school for the physical and psychological harm she had to endure because Tulane threatened to expel her if she dared protect herself.

For anyone interested, I wrote a more in-depth and more general dissertation of the problem in which I posed the question of whether or not universities are actually encouraging such violence by placing the students at a disadvantage. Anyone wishing to read it can find it here: Do Colleges, Universities Encourage Violence Towards Women?

I think the answer to that question is patently obvious. Please share your thoughts on the matter should you feel strongly enough about the issue to do so.

Please don't take my word for it though. If anyone thinks this is even remotely exaggerated, please see the following, which I had no part of: http://jezebel.com/5877160/tulane-university-students-invoke-widespread-rape-in-calling-for-increased-off+campus-security 


"I'm pretty paranoid in general.  I carry around pepper spray with me everywhere I go,” said Tulane University student Angie Baroffio." http://www.projectnola.com/the-news/news/42-fox-8/177260-off-campus-crimes-have-loyola-tulane-students-on-edge

Gun Control Debate Finally Settled: It Doesn't Work

Gun Control Definitively Proven a Failure, Debate Finally Over

In light of the recent strategy involving yet another school shooting and yet another balls-to-the-wall effort from democrats to exploit the tragedy to advance their gun control agenda, the debate has reared its ugly head once again for the first time since the 2004 election cycle.

Following a NOLA.com story involving yet another Tulane University student being robbed at gunpoint (thank God at least this time the victim was male, and there was no rape accompanying the armed robbery, as is typically the case), a former Tulane student who was enrolled in late 2003 and early 2004, a time period during which rapes and armed robberies of (mostly) female students walking home (or to their vehicles) from campus had reached epidemic proportions, dared to speak out against the violence against women by way of an editorial published in The Hullabaloo, the Tulane student newspaper suggesting his theory as to why so many students were being violently attacked while leaving campus.

His theory: a campus-wide firearms ban prevented students from adequately defending themselves in one of America's most dangerous cities, and one in which the criminals are keenly aware of the fact that these campus-wide gun-free zones exist. He went on to suggest that unless the university did away with the policy either voluntarily or following litigation initiated by the victims of these crimes seeking monetary compensation sufficient to account for damage to person and property, as well as punitive damages; the trend would only continue. He was right.

The week following the debut of his editorial appearing in the Hullabaloo, the paper received a record number of submissions of what ultimately were better classified as hate mail rather than legitimate letters-to-the-editor attempting to refute the student's editorial appearing the week before. An editor for the paper at the time all this was going on reportedly told the student that the paper received more than 600 total letters in response, and 450 or so by the deadline for print the following week. The overwhelming majority contained language rendering them unsuitable for print.

The week following the student's letter suggesting the gun ban on campus was if not the problem at the very least counter-productive towards any viable solution, the Hullabaloo devoted its entire op/ed page to the least vulgar of the letters written in response, published under a page-wide headline at the very top reading "Re: Peter Egan Jr".

Obviously, Kira McAllister, one of the students whose retort was published the following week, had never been raped while walking home from campus. She suggested better alternatives such as traveling in groups. Oddly enough, in an email exchange that ensued, Ms. McAllister denied Mr. Egan's request for accompaniment on his own walk home from class.

Well, with the issue back in the news both because if the attack on the Tulane student, the recent school massacre and the regime's efforts at removing the final obstacle barring the implementation of a full-fledged totalitarian police state, the story resurfaced. First, it appeared on the personal blog of the pro-women's rights student, Peter Egan. Later, a scaled-down version appeared at a social news site called Thruzt, a link to which later appeared on Facebook. It was in this Facebook status update containing the link to the story at Thruzt in which the debate was finally settled decisively, definitively and once-and-for-all.

In the follow-up post to this one, the debate that ensued will be published in its entirety for all to see. In it, each and every argument in any way related to the issue came up and was settled in favor of the pro-freedom crowd --- and by a wide margin at that. Each and every argument used to support arguments in favor of gun control was surgically dismantled with a degree of precision not seen in political communication since the heyday of Ronald Reagan.

In any case, the merits of the issue have now been decided. Anyone who wishes to may see for him or herself the extent to which from a debate standpoint, this one was quite the blowout. Anyone who believes in gun control can easily access facts that more than adequately refute the agenda-driven "studies", illogical and fallacious arguments used to support the systematic dismantling of arguably the most critical component of any free society.

After reading the entire conversation, the only way one could still support gun control is through either A) Blind Faith; B) Belligerence; or C) A desire to disarm the civilian population of a free society in order to transform it into a totalitarian state in which only police are permitted to possess weapons.

Here is the argument that decisively won the gun control debate: http://lamesubdomain.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-discussion-that-won-gun-control.html

Mississippi Gulf Coast: Great Beaches, Better Prices

Mississippi Gulf Coast: Great Beaches, Better Prices

As those with whom I am closest are already aware, in early 2012 I made a fairly significant move from Covington, Louisiana to Long Beach, Mississippi. The move was motivated by a desire to reside literally ON the beach, and have the luxury of walking outside and fishing, sunbathing, etc.

For the first six months or so following the move, I was commuting to-and-from Covington from Long Beach, a round-trip that comes out to approximately three hours per day.

Needless to say, it wasn't long before I'd grown weary of the excessive drive time, not to mention all of the lost productivity that comes with it. I decided within weeks of the time I began residing along the coast that I would eventually be taking my talents and my business interests to Long Beach. A little over half a year later, that process is well underway, a commercially-zoned piece of property secured in downtown Long Beach to go with the beachfront condominium in which I've been residing was the missing piece. I am presently in the process of moving all of the inventory and equipment from Covington to my new "home town".

Long Beach is everything I had hoped it would be and then some. While the fishing isn't always great, it's not altogether bad either. There are days when the fish are biting and days when they're not.

Likewise, there are days when the beaches are full of local talent (and/or tourists), and days when the only females on the beach are their with their husbands and/or children.

The change has done me some good. The increased sun exposure has led to significant weight loss on my behalf, which is likely the result of increased testosterone levels, a little-known side-effect of men soaking up the sun's natural rays on a regular and consistent basis.

About a month ago, a beautiful girl came into my life from literally out-of-nowhere, and as much as I tried to fight it I fell in love with her immediately. She couldn't help but comment repeatedly during our first couple of outings together that the physical attraction she felt for me was unlike anything she's ever experienced. While I may otherwise overlook such remarks as pure flattery, I've seen myself in the mirror lately and quite frankly I can see where she's coming from.

The sun exposure coupled with stress and a lot of exercise has me in the best shape I've been in since high school, and the combination of factors has me as happy as I've ever been in my 30 years on earth. I just thank God for the past six weeks (and in a more general sense the past 7 months), and hope and pray that the string of recent blessings continues.

Oh, one other thing worthy of mention is the fact that Long Beach is effectively a ghost town where the pre-Katrina homeowners cannot give away their property, so anyone looking to snatch up a nice house, apartment or condo on or near the beach may want to take a close look at Long Beach. I did, and as of today it ranks among the very best decisions I've ever made.

Phone Stalkers Do More Harm Than Good

As anyone who has ever made the mistake of signing up to receive information about online colleges and traditional universities with extensive online course offerings knows all-too-well, the ensuing harassment undertaken by the telemarketers acting on behalf of the various "institutions of higher learning" can be a major detriment to one's quality-of-life. The callers have no regard for the privacy of their victims, calling seven days a week, and numerous times each day at that.

Their goal is to get the victim to agree to attend their substandard self-proclaimed educational institute for the sole purpose of persuading the telemarketers to leave them alone.

I have been called by online universities and payment processing companies as early as 6:30 am, give or take five minutes, as late as 9:00 pm, not to mention on weekends, when for a period of several months I would receive several calls each day without exception.

I know I didn't sign up for this harassment. But how then would they get my information and what would lead them to believe I had any interest whatsoever in attending their bogus universities or switching to their payment processing service that has to rely on cold calling  in order to generate leads. This tells me that their service must not be very good if mass media plus word-of-mouth is insufficient to generate attention, and if they must resort to calling me hours before I'd otherwise wake up on a Saturday in order to inform me of their company's existence, I will continue to interpret that as their way of saying that neither their service nor their company meets my standards.

The most important lesson to take from this is that if you have an enemy (or enemies), and you'd really like to get at them good, sign them up unknowingly for information about taking college courses online and/or hiring any one of a large number of payment processing companies which all appear to use the same telemarketing service to inundate unsuspecting would-be customers with unwanted phone calls.

Good Doctors vs Bad Doctors

In my experience growing up in a family that eats, sleeps and breathes healthcare and medicine (father owns several healthcare-related companies; mother is a primary care nurse practitioner and is also the owner of a Covington skin care spa; and a sister who is a MD (ENT, to be specific), I have a few thoughts about an article I came across at About.com about (no pun intended) how to distinguish good doctors from the not-so-good ones. I take exception to the title of the article, which is why I will refrain from using it here.

The article mentions a survey that was obviously conducted in such a way that doctors would appear to be dishonest creeps once the results were in. Not surprisingly, the survey was conducted by Massachusetts-based researchers, most affiliated with Harvard University.

I'd like to see the context and the way in which the questions were presented and phrased before taking any statistics from the study at face value. There surely must have been more information provided to the doctors surveyed than the minimal information reported in the 'Patients.About' article. No doctor would answer the questions supposedly asked without context. The author of the piece included a link to the abstract, but offered nothing by way of details in terms of the use "gotcha!" questions in conducting the survey.

"Good" Nurse Practitioner Pam Egan

That said, I somewhat agree with the 6-point plan for patients proposed as a solution to a problem the article claims exists (although this author has his doubts about the size, scope and nature of the problem, if it even exists at all). The alleged problem is doctor dishonesty, and the six-point plan suggests such things as seeking second opinions, trusting one's intuition and urging patients to not 'put up with arrogant doctors...'. To read the entire piece, see the above link (for more practical reading, continue on with this piece).

To begin, there is this thing called Google these days, and anyone in the civilized world can use it to access any information that exists in the world to be presented at the user's fingertips at the speed of light. Anyone taking a medication for which the person has any questions, it never hurts to do a little self-research to compliment the information provided by the doctor and/or manufacturer of the drug.

Additionally, intuition is an extremely important and often overlooked component of finding the best doctors. If you feel uncomfortable around your doctor, it's probably not because he or she is wearing a white coat and has loads of credentials that may make he or she appear to be some sort of authority figure to some patients. If one feels uncomfortable around his/her doctor, there's probably a good reason --- even if one cannot pinpoint the exact source of the discomfort.

Patients should always ask about treatment options. If a doctor does not provide all or at least most of the credible information available via the internet, it may be time to either ask the doctor the reason why he or she omitted one of more treatment options for whichever condition or disease the patient was diagnosed. If the answer is unsatisfactory, it may be time to find a new doctor.

I would take patient reviews of physicians with a grain of salt. As a business owner, I am well aware of the myriad of tactics, tricks and paid services businesses (inevitably including some physicians, clinics and other healthcare professionals) use to artificially control and/or manipulate their own respective reputations. This may come in the form of reviewing oneself under a different name, or exchanging friendly reviews with other businesses, professionals, etc. Other tactics include writing false negative reviews of competing businesses/professionals and paying companies to manage reputation. A number of companies have cropped up over the past 18 months purporting to specialize in "reputation management", for what its worth.

Furthermore, there are myriad reasons why a legitimate customer may leave a disproportionately negative review of a company or individual. Some customers, clients and patients lack the degree of honesty and integrity necessary to be credible when writing a review of a business, person or organization. Just look at this example of an incident involving a couple of scam artists and a used bedside commode.

I wouldn't seek a second opinion unless the health or medical issue/condition/disease was very serious, or if I intuitively felt as though the doctor was (or may be) wrong.

I wouldn't attempt to self-diagnose, which is essentialy what differential diagnosis is when conducted by the patient; but I would research the symptoms. If another condition seemed more plausible than the diagnosis issued by the physician, then it would be time to seek a second opinion.

One final means of weeding out bad doctors is to talk with them about nutrition. The days of reactionary 20th Century medicine are over. The amount of research that has been conducted involving the relationship between nutritional deficiencies and propensity for disease is staggering, and probably more than double the amount of such information available just ten years ago when vitamin D supplements contained a plant-based form of the nutrient that is not well absorbed by humans (vitamin D2, ergocalciferol), but which is cheaper to produce than the more bioactive (readily absorbed for use by the body) form used in most supplements today (vitamin D3, cholecalciferol).

21st Century physicians should not be averse to discussing the role of nutrition in the big picture of one's overall health. The information is readily available, and slowly but surely the stigma long assiciated with doctors, nurse practitioners and other healthcare professionals making claims regarding nutrition (or the lack thereof) as a contributing factor to disease are (or at least should be) long over. The peer pressure physicians face with regard to the role of nutrition in medicine has started to subside in recent years, and a genuinely good primary care, family/general practice doctor who is well informed will ask his or her patients if they'd like to have a blood test conducted to measure one's nutrient levels in order to identify any potentially harmful deficiencies.

Be very wary of those general/family practice and/or primary care doctors who either won't speak in depth about the role of nutrition towards overall health, or who pooh-pooh the notion that vitamins and supplements can help to prevent disease and/or other health maladies.

Following the advice outlined above should help patients find a good doctor who is trustworthy as well as informed.

Fat Lester Formally Endorses Newt Gingrich

The campaign of former House Speaker and current GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich received a major boost today when internet / social media extraordinaire Fat Lester officially endorsed the former Congressman from Georgia.

Fat Lester, whose real name is Peter Egan, had not previously endorsed a candidate, citing favorable views of numerous candidates early on in the GOP nominating contest, along with the fact that he personally knows more than one of the candidates originally in the race as reasons for refraining from issuing an endorsement.

(Newt Gingrich consults with NOLA Tea Party leaders including Fat Lester)

However, when Herman Cain announced that he was suspending his campaign in light of a series of frivolous, racially-motivated attacks by several women on the left who were allegedly paid millions combined in exchange for levying the false and defamatory charges. Needless to say, these women were acting on behalf of the Obama Administration/Campaign (they're one-in-the-same), including at least one Obama Administration employee and the next-door neighbor of Obama's speech writer, it left Gingrich as the only candidate in the race with whom Lester has spoken with at length and in person regarding the challenges facing the country and the solutions required to get the nation back on the right track.

(GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich and Right-Wing Conspirator Fat Lester)

That said, personal affiliation with a candidate was not the sole criteria upon which Lester based the decision. Lester is also a strong supporter of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and identifies with Santorum's views on most issues, in particular the one nobody likes to talk about: the "A-word".

(Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich introduces himself to the VRWC)

This conflict made endorsing a candidate difficult even after Cain, whom Lester had helped raise funds via a Tea Party Rally with over two thousand attendees (back before he'd even announced he was running) at which Cain was the keynote speaker; announced that his campaign was effectively over and that he (Cain) would be endorsing Gingrich. However, after three states have held their nominating contests, with Santorum's victory in Iowa failing to translate into momentum going forward, Lester decided Gingrich is the candidate most likely to defeat Obama in a 1-on-1 match-up due to his unnaturally high IQ (he must have 50 IQ points over Obama and no less than 120 over former Speaker Nancy Pelosi) as well as his superior debate skills.

(Naturally, the media was not invited to the closed-door session)

While Fat Lester had speculated back in June that Gingrich may ultimately represent the Republican Party's best shot at victory in 2012, he had withheld making an endorsement so early on in the campaign for obvious reasons, some of which are stated above.

Lester is not going to merely informally endorse the former Speaker by issuing a public announcement on one of his blogs. Rather, he will be putting his money (something he has very little of) where his mouth is, and will be making a financial contribution to both Gingrich and Santorum's respective campaigns, with Gingrich receiving roughly twice the amount that will be given to Santorum. Should the latter win any more states or do anything else that results in his building of momentum with the majority of states yet to vote, he will likely receive additional funding from Lester proportionate to any progress he makes in terms of gaining ground on Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

(Newt Gingrich thanks Fat Lester for his advice and endorsement)

Fat Lester would like to encourage anyone and everyone reading this who cares about the general welfare of the United States of America to do likewise and make a donation to the Gingrich campaign using the link below. He would like for you to do this regardless of who you are, what your party affiliation is or which candidate you're supporting. Anyone can donate, regardless of one's income.

DONATE TO NEWT'S CAMPAIGN

America's Next President Poses with Fat Lester's Sister

If Fat Lester can come up with $100 spread out over a few months, so can you. It's time we take our country back, and we're going to need everyone to chip in whatever they can in order to save the nation.

The most important people were seated closest to the candidate

Another four years of Obama holding the office of the Presidency, and the United States will look more like Cuba than the prosperous one-time superpower where anyone who was willing to work hard could achieve success not attainable in most places throughout the world.

Fat Lester believes Newt Gingrich is the candidate with the best chance to take in 57+% of the vote required to win after the millions of fraudulent votes that will be cast by democrats are accounted for. In swing states, the real number needed to win could reach as high as 63-64%. In order to win this election, we will need to get 100% of the eligible voters in this country who want to preserve the freedom, prosperity and opportunity for which America was founded and will always be remembered (in the event Obama wins and the nation is disassembled or integrated into a North American Union). In order to do that, we will need to contribute whatever we can without losing our homes or failing to put food on our respective tables.

Please donate to Newt's campaign. If you support Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, donate to them as well. Fat Lester will be donating $120, $80 to the Gingrich campaign and $40 to the Santorum campaign. Please make one sacrifice on an item you can live without (as long as it's not something you're considering buying from Fat Lester or his affiliated businesses ;-), and instead use that money to help defeat the great American Saboteur-in-Chief.

---

On a totally separate note, it appears Mitt Romney's got some problems on the horizon:

Small Business Directory Inadvertently Opens Door for Competition

LOS ANGELES, CA - Like most everyone else throwing their two cents into the discussion over the 2012 edition of Merchant Circle versus the community we'd all grown to know and love, I'd like to personally take this opportunity to state on record my opposition to MerchantCircle's 2012 overhaul of the site design and functionality.

Merchants who contribute content should be rewarded for their efforts, and before January of 2012 they were. Now, our blog posts aren't even featured on our company homepage, nor are our products, photos or coupons. The fact that MC has shifted focus away from those creating content and towards those paying for placement is a move that will undoubtedly upset a number of business owners in addition to myself, opening the proverbial door of opportunity for competitors to move in on the space the old MC had occupied.

Merchant Circle's 2012 overhaul has angered users, opening the door for competitors to move in.

Instead of the 2011 profiles, which largely featured a merchant's contributions on his or her own small business' homepage on the site, those pages now have more ads to competitors' pages and websites, with only reviews displayed beneath the company bio on company homepages. The category links that once appeared on my Merchant Circle company homepage are now gone, as is the Google +1 button (although it remains on some of the pages that haven't yet adopted the new design).

Many formerly free features now cost far more than fair market value based on pricing for similar services at those few companies who do charge for them.

Rather than labor for the benefit of companies with the resources to pay to be prominently featured on my Merchant Circle company homepage that doesn't even link to my recent blog posts, photos, coupons or deals, I will instead most likely be spending more time on similar sites --- alternatives to Merchant Circle --- preferably sites that won't use bait-and-switch tactics to trick users to generate loads of free content, only to see the commercial benefit of said content be taken away from them.

One such site is called StoreBoard. At StoreBoard, you have a company profile, such as the one I have already created for Egan Medical. Like Merchant Circle, companies get their own blog, and can add coupons, list products in the marketplace, post images, classifieds and even links to their company's respective site-within-a-site.

The company blogs are superior to those at MC as the option to add photographs to posts actually functions properly, meaning the photo actually appears, and all text and HTML show beneath the photo also appears on the page for each respective post. As most users of Merchant Circle who've tried to add photos to blog posts without completely coding the entire page from scratch, the photos usually don't appear, and all text/HTML appearing beneath the photo does not appear either. I once lost more than an hour's work because I forgot to independently save a copy of my MC blog post on my own computer, and lost it when I attempted to include a photo in the post, only to find that all photos and everything appearing beneath them just gets deleted on MC blogs. StoreBoard blogs also give the user superior formatting options compared to those offered by MC.

Here is an example post by Egan Medical Equipment about a new line of products (maternity supports, to be specific) which now are available for purchase through the company's online store: Egan Medical Unveils New Line of Maternity Supports.

Obviously, the site is newer and not as powerful, so the benefit of your activity there won't have the immediate and meaningful impact being featured prominently at Merchant Circle once had.


In fact, each company gets its own links page, and as long as the links don't violate the company's terms of service, users can pretty much post anything they think their customers will appreciate, be it links to products, articles, news stories or whatever else might be useful.

Like Merchant Circle, all that is displayed on a given company's homepage is their bio and contact info (including website link). However, I haven't seen any ads for competitors either while logged in or out, so if they exist they're minimal and out-of-the-way, and you won't see your hard work serve to benefit a larger competitor with a bigger advertising budget.

While we're on the topic of new competitors to the Small Business Online Directory business, one not-so-new player is making a new and significant push to add features that might lure users away from competitors such as MC. Well known, established directory site Manta has added a number of features that will definitely appeal to merchants, and which are superior to the comparable features offered by MC.
Take for example this product page, which is more like a general category page about maternity supports (basically an orthopedic support for women during pregnancy) than a singular product page. The maternity supports page was recently created for a small business profile at Manta. Observe the large photo of the product, the ability to list either a singular price for a specific item or a price range for a class or group of items. Also, observe the length of the product description, which far outpaces the amount of space given by MC for product pages, and even then there were no links to the actual product page on the merchant's website. Manta has all that and more. While I'm no profit, it would seem a logical conclusion that Manta may be soon offering merchants the opportunity to blog directly from their Manta profile, which would get Manta up-to-par in terms of everyone else in the business with regard to the amount and extent of features available to merchants willing to spend their time creating content for the site for free in exchange for a small but sometimes meaningful bit of a promotional opportunity and benefit.

Unless and until Manta and StoreBoard "pull a MerchantCircle" and revokes the most appealing features of its site for the benefit of a handful of each industry's largest and richest players, I will likely be spending as much if not more time developing Egan Medical's presence within the StoreBoard community as I will continue to spend here on Merchant Circle.

I'll also stop paying for a certain Merchant Circle paid upgrade if said upgrade (they know to which one I am referring) fails to reappear on my company profile within the next 7 days.

Anyway, I hope someone at Merchant Circle is eventually made aware of all the displeasure among business owners and their respective employees about the recent overhaul of Merchant Circle's design and functionality, and I sincerely hope the big MC can get it together and make real improvements rather than changes that prey upon small business owners as much as they help them.

Regarding Senator Vitter's Proposal to Drug Test Welfare Recipients

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06, 2011

My favorite U.S. Senator, David Vitter, R-LA, recently published an editorial at USNews.com arguing in favor of random drug testing of federal welfare recipients. While I do not necessarily disagree with the Senator's premise or logic, I do believe that the proposal outlined in the column does not do enough to sufficiently address the monumental waste of taxpayer funds as it pertains to drug addiction.

I most definitely believe that Senator Vitter's heart and mind are in the right place with this proposal. I certainly do not want my tax dollars being used by welfare recipients to purchase illegal drugs.

However, I would like to know what the relative cost would be to put welfare-recipients who are addicted to drugs through treatment versus simply continuing to support their lifestyle? I would be willing to be that the latter actually costs less to the taxpayers.

I believe that any such program should include a provision mandating that anyone arrested for possession of illegal narcotics be sentenced to drug treatment rehabilitation instead of serving time in jail/prison.

The cost of incarcerating non-violent drug offenders far outweighs the cost of their monthly welfare check. If we're serious about reducing wasteful expenditures of tax dollars, let's invest the money currently being used to incarcerate drug addicts into inpatient detox and rehabilitation. This will (by my estimation) more than quadruple the savings as individuals currently incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses could become taxpaying citizens themselves rather than having their entire lives destroyed permanently on the taxpayers' dime.

I'm all for the testing of welfare recipients, but I will reiterate that if the proposal's real intent is to reduce wasteful government spending at both the state and federal level, any such legislation should also seek to reform the criminal justice system in such a way that nonviolent drug offenders receive treatment instead of jail time.

Why I Will NOT Be Voting for Ron Paul in the GOP Primary

The only way he'd get my vote is if his opponent were Barack Obama, and even then I'd pull the lever holding my breathe that those classified security briefings he'd receive would bring about a 180 in terms of his foreign policy views and initiatives.

The one area which the United States federal government has undisputed constitutional authority to spend taxpayer money is on the military and defense, and Congressman Paul's foreign policy views are simply too wrong for me to vote for him against any other Republican.

Ron Paul and the other GOP candidates for President debate

I like Ron Paul. I'd like him w whole lot better if is position on foreign policy and the role of the United States military in maintaining global order while eliminating threats to the Constitution and the republic wasn't so badly skewed.

The thing about him that is so maddening is that on just about every single issue foreign policy excluded, he is right-on-the-money, and towers over the other candidates in the GOP primary in terms of his positions on the issues and his rationale for said positions. However, when it comes to foreign policy, Rep. Paul has convinced me that were he to be elected President, he'd either very quickly realize how wrong he has been all these years in light of the classified security briefings new Presidents receive; or he'd transition the United States into a new Russian territory (like Cuba, for example).

It's easy for Americans to get caught up in an illusion that lends to a belief that the world is run by sane, rational and civilized people who share the values most Americans hold dear. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case.

Communism will always be a threat to this or any republic. The only thing standing in the way of another world war that would make the previous two pale in comparison in terms of the devastation it would unleash is the United States military, and the brave men and women who serve our country and defend our constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Rep. Paul's stated desire to adopt an isolationist foreign policy while slashing the size and potency of the military, including but not limited to the withdrawal of troops from strategic locations around the world, is what makes him a dangerous candidate, and one for whom I would not vote unless I had absolutely no other choice (meaning if he were to actually win the 2012 GOP nomination).

Since Herman Cain dropped out of the race, I have yet to formally endorse a candidate, but plan to do so in the near future in an upcoming post.

Wishful Thinking: The Anti-Soros

The Emergence of the Anti-Soros

As much as I'd like to say otherwise, I am not aware of anyone who appears to be maneuvering him or herself such that one day that person could serve as a counter-influence and check on George Soros' power. Not even myself :-( . Hey, a guy can have dreams though, right?

I'm going to divulge little bit about myself here for those of you readers visiting this blog for the first time, or who are simply unfamiliar with me in general, and thus are unaware of the context most readers of this blog know by way of past experiences with me.


I work about 80 hours a week on average, and sometimes more. Sure, I would like to one day be as wealthy as George Soros. While I have no doubt that should I achieve my financial goals or anything even close, I would thoroughly enjoy the money (a yacht with a harem of topless women feeding me grapes and strawberries in the Caribbean sun comes to mind), the primary reason I strive for such riches is so that I can become - for lack of a better term - the Anti-Soros.


Please do not mistake me for believing I am or ever could be Jesus Christ or his reincarnation (or ever be even 1/7777777 the man he was and is). That said, if I were to do as much good in the world as one would have to accomplish in order to earn even remote consideration for a title such as the "Anti-Soros", I'd feel much better about my chances for receiving forgiveness for my own worldly sins, which are many.


That said, I'm not an evil person, and I do have a good heart, flawed as I am. It would be nice though to be able to invest $10,000,000 into developing SmokersVote.org (a yet-to-be-established political PAC I intend to develop into an organization that at this point would best be described as the "NRA of and for Tobacco", as well as anyone else who believes in freedom-of-choice and personal responsibility.


It would also be nice to be able to take $500,000,000 and donate it to the campaign fund of GOP Presidential frontrunner Herman Cain using anonymous overseas donations of less than $200 (which is how Soros circumvented U.S. campaign finance law when he contributes roughly half of Obama's 2008 war chest).


I'd love to be able to contribute millions of dollars to Pro-Life candidates for the Unites States House of Representatives, U.S. Senate and state Governorships in hopes that someday, the right side will finally win large enough majorities in the federal lawmaking chambers and/or win the governorships of enough states to either have a law made outlawing abortion outright, have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the unprecedented historical tragedy of Roe v. Wade, and/or accomplish the same end by way of a Constitutional amendment (which if my memory serves me correctly would require 37 states to sign on).


I'd thoroughly enjoy buying or founding my own nationwide and/or worldwide newspapers, cable networks and institutions for higher learning --- even if the investments yielded a perpetual negative return monetarily speaking which of course I would be easily able to sustain given my wealth --- for the sole purpose of attempting to revive the terminally ill profession of news and journalism, and bring it back to the fundamentals of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How, with the facts of the stories being covered actually being factual in nature, with personal and political opinions confined to the OP/ED page.


My schools would teach history (which has been absent from course curricula in America for generations across all levels of the education/propaganda system). For example, in Econ 101 at UFL (University of Fat Lester), students would be asked to write their final term paper on John Maynard Keynes and his theories regarding economics. Students who would fail to point out in said term paper the fact that "Keynesian Economics", while fundamentally-sound on its surface and in theory, and perhaps even altruistic in nature in terms of the motivation underlying Keynes' thinking (and that of the political figures throughout history who have applied Keynes' economic principles), has failed miserably in each and every single example of its actual application as a mechanism for economic planning and governance, would receive an "F" for the paper and no credit for the course.


Nature's Law of Supply and Demand would be introduced in elementary school and would be a yearly recurring theme until high school, during which it would be taught in Physics class as well as in Biology, Civics and American History. The reason being that Supply and Demand is every bit as much of one of the few natural laws which govern the universe as are the Law of Gravity and the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy. The only difference between the laws from the standpoint of a physicist is that the latter two require no life, while the former must have life present in order to be applied and recognized. It is a common misnomer that the Law of Supply and Demand is exclusive to human society. In fact, this is the law that governs all life on earth, from the tiniest single-cell organisms to the most complex beasts nature has to offer, and everything in between.


Evolution is fueled by Supply and Demand. As environmental conditions (including supplies of food and the demand thereof - i.e. "competition") change over time, life forms (including plants, animals, bacteria and so forth) either evolve so as to continue to survive in an ever-changing environment or become extinct. It is this, the most natural of all the laws which govern nature and the natural world, from which the economic system known as Capitalism is modeled. Obviously, Capitalism must be slightly modified to meet the needs of a civilized human society (you can't just kill your next-door neighbor and steal his potatoes because you're hungry). However, in terms of its viability as a system providing all of the necessary components for long-term success and prosperity for nearly all involved parties - including but not limited to its own built-in system of checks-and-balances - it is unparalleled. This is especially true when compared directly with the system envisioned by Keynes, which contradicts virtually every aspect of human nature, and --- dare I say --- nature itself.


Students attending the schools and universities controlled by my hypothetical future money would be taught facts like these beginning at an early age. A tremendous emphasis would be placed on teaching students how to think (for themselves) as opposed to what to think (as most schools and universities are oriented toward). However, students who reject indisputable fact and fail to substantiate their dissenting position(s) with a logical argument that exposes one or more flaws in the established thinking would be required to spend additional time learning the principles of logic, reason and critical thinking - perhaps the most glaring deficiency of all in today's American education system, which for the past 70 years or so has been unanimously dominated by the liberal establishment (with substantial influence and significant contributions by the Soviet KGB - * see video at bottom of page if you decide to click the link).

How Evil is George Soros?

Is George Soros the world's most evil man? The question relates to and includes women too, for whatever it's worth. I have my reasons for phrasing it in an exclusively male context (If you must know... In all seriousness, does anyone really believe that any woman who is not an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend --- your ex-wife or girlfriend to be specific, not just anyone's --- could be more evil than the world's most evil man? . . . I didn't think so).

Is he (Soros) even evil to begin with? Or, is it possible for a person to be as genuinely confused about right-and-wrong as Uncle Soros would have us all believe is the case with himself?

The question unfortunately begs numerous other questions best left to a theologian to answer. Some of these include:

• What is evil?
• Is evil defined by actions, behaviors, words, beliefs and/or some combination thereof?
• Who is to say what is evil?
• Is morality relative? What about ethics?
• Is it possible that some people who are born with fully functioning brains and organs lack what most of us would refer to as a conscience?
• Who am I to judge ("Judge not, lest thee be judged")?
• Can evil exist without the existence of God (a question for athiests and agnostics, obviously)?
• Does evil exist period?

Is there a certain threshold as to what constitutes evil in any sense (actions, thoughts, behaviors, etc.), or is whether or not something "is evil" determined on a case-by-case basis? If so, by whom (another question for non-believers, who for the record I am not judging in any way, shape, manner or form, and against whom I have not one iota of angst)?

I'm not going to attempt to answer any of those questions, but for those who wish to delve into them further, I will provide to the resources I utilize to help wrap my mind around these concepts:

• Regarding Moral Conscience
• Regarding Good and Evil
• Regarding the Nature and Sources of Morality
• Regarding Sin

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other person that is alive at present that I'd consider to be "more" evil than George Soros, at least according to my understanding of evil*. And yes, that includes serial killers, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro (whom I'm still 98% certain died in 2007 or 2008, but is still "officially" alive, so he's included here for the purposes of conversation).
In the case of Ahmadinejad, while he may aspire to kill more Jews than Hitler himself was responsible for murdering, he lacks the capacity to single-handedly orchestrate such a massacre, and could only succeed in doing so with significant help from George Soros --- which he has gotten. That said, Soros has the ability to put a stop to the nutjob in Iran if he wished to do so. Unfortunately, he does not, and in fact has been an integral part of Iran's obtaining nuclear weapons, not to mention the fact that for at least the past three years, Iran's nuclear program has proceeded without a hitch, but with the blessing of the U.S. Commander in Chief, who as we all know was hand-picked by Soros, who propagandized America for long enough to get him elected. Not that he really needed to, Soros' SOS Project (SOS is an acronym for Secratary of State, which makes the complete name of this sinister undertaking by George Soros the Secretary of State Project) has been such an unprecedented success that Obama would only have needed to win about 35% of the popular vote in any of the states he won in order to "win" those states.

For anyone unfamiliar with the SOS Project, Soros funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into statewide elections for the position of Secretary of State. He did this across the entire United States. The mission behind Project SOS is to ensure that in any election between a democrat and a Republican in which the statewide demographics are such that a democrat victory would be anything less than proposerous to even conceive of --- meaning that a vast majority of the voting population would be less than 100% certain of a fraudulent outcome should the democrat emerge on top --- that the democrat wins each and every one of those elections regardless of what it takes to meet those ends.

The responsibilities of the Secretary of State on a statewide level are far different than the position at the federal level. For states, the SoS's job is typically to oversee business and corporate filings, and to manage and coordinate elections for each given state. Relative to any other position in a typical U.S. state government, the SoS has the most power to illegally influence the outcome of an election in a variety of ways, and Soros' minions have figured out all of them, mastering most in the process.

Take the 2010 Nevada election for U.S. Senate between Harry Reid (who has been termed the "Second-Most Evil Man in America") and Tea Party favorite Sharon Angle. All of the polls leading up to and even on election day (exit polls in the case of election day itself) showed Angle with a comfortable lead ranging from 3.5 - 5.5 percentage points. Not a blowout by any stretch of the imagination, but outside the margin of error for all but a few of the more obscure polls that were released. Nevada's Secretary of State, who was effectively appointed by Soros via the SOS Project, contracted with --- of all people --- the SEIU (an uber-liberal, proactive democrat PAC. The name is an acronym for the Service Employees International Union) to manage, maintain and perform "maintenance" on Nevada's electronic voting machines.

This directly resulted in two (2) different types of election fraud. Not surprisingly, both just "happened" to work to Harry Reid's advantage. The two different forms of mass election fraud from Nevada's 2010 race are:

1. Thousands and perhaps even tens of thousands of the machines were pre-programmed to cast votes for Harry Reid. Upon each vote being registered and the voting form cleared for the next voter, the device was set to vote for Harry Reid by default!! Wait, it gets worse. When intelligent and informed voters with stable minds went in to cast their ballots, hundreds of voters observed their vote for Sharon Angle switched at the last second by the machine. The switch occurred after the voter had pressed the "cast ballot" button, but was apparently visible for just long enough for several hundred voters to take notice. We can only guess at how many hundreds or thousands just pressed the button and left the polling place, never even stopping to consider that a United States Senator would resort to such scandalous and illegal tactics for the purpose of subverting the democratic process and the will of the people.
2. In heavily democratic precincts (those most predictable and most likely to favor Reid over Angle by a wide margin based on demographics and past voter behavior alone), numerous precincts submitted more votes than there were registered voters residing within and/or registered to vote within the precinct. For anyone wondering how that happens, there are two scenarios that in all likelihood both occurred. The first involved the same people voting more than once. It's no secret that this goes on in every election involving a democrat without exception, and has ever since the days when the democrat party was heavily aligned with the Klan (sadly, not much has changed on that front), with both organizations' (the democrats and the KKK) primary objective being the subversion of the rights of black U.S. citizens. The second scenario us unfortunately also fairly common in elections involving democrats. This latter scenario involves union thugs simply pulling the lever over-and-over again for Reid after the polls had closed.

When all was said and done, Harry Reid was "reelected" by a slim margin. TRANSLATION: Sharon Angle won the election by 6-10 percentage points, but Reid was reelected anyway due to the rampant fraud that occurred, which was on display for all to see, and of which little attempt was made by the guilty parties to conceal the sinister actions and intents. With a so-called Department of Justice that is in cahoots with Reid, Obama and the democrats, it came as little surprise that there was no federal investigation into these widely documented reports and claims, for which the evidence is so readily available one could fill the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans with all the witnesses and documents supportive of the allegations.

The point of this story is that none of this (Harry Reid's fraudulent reelection) would have been possible if it weren't for a Hungarian-born devil of a man by the name of George Soros.

VIDEO: George Soros Discussing China's
Role in the New World Order





* NOTE: For the purposes of discussion and debate, I am obviously taking a leave of absence from my usual approach of deferring judgment to someone I deem more qualified than myself to judge other human beings (that would be God, for those of you in Eugene, Oregon).

Lazy 'Occupy Wall Street' Junkies Should Be Allowed to Starve (for the Good of the Country)

The lazy bums loitering in the streets of New York City (Wall Street, to be specific), Atlanta, GA, New Orleans, LA and other cities all across the United States, are an awfully pathetic bunch.  A loosely affiliated mixture of left wing radicals such as communists, anarchists, fascists and other sinister liberal groups, the one common trait shared by all of the Occupy Wall Street hooligans is that they would all prefer to spend their time "protesting" in the street against people who actually have jobs, work for a living and succeed, than get jobs themselves.  Their reason?  Because those people --- the evil Wall Street ne'er do wells --- have more money than they do.

They want everyone else to do all their work for them, as well as give them all the money the people who perform who work earn.  These people (OWS thugs) are a shining example of why food stamps should be done away with.  These lazy junkies should be allowed to starve if they aren't willing to support themselves.

Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Lazy and Stupid

The fact that we as taxpayers are subsidizing these slobs to the point they can afford to remain perennially unemployed, protesting the working man and going weeks in between showers.  They never brush their teeth, have no desire to fit in to society, much less have to work for a living.  Yet they're alive nonetheless.  They don't deserve to be alive, yet they are, and the sole reason is because working people continue to feed them.

It's time to let the monumentally lazy starve.  The benefits of doing so for the country are multi-fold.  First, some of them will eventually begrudgingly get jobs, accepting that the realization of their greatest fear (having to work) is still better than being dead.  This will add to the supply side of the labor equation, which in the macro picture will help to reduce the cost of employing workers for businesses.  When the cost of doing business goes down, businesses are more likely to succeed and by greater margins, which will go a long way toward helping to reverse the Obama recession.

Other communists and anarchists will stay true to their core laziness, opting to die a martyr rather than get a job.  This will reduce the number of democrat voters, which will make it harder for democrats to get elected, which will reduce their numbers in the House and Senate.  Less democrats in Congress means a fast economic recovery, further building upon the gains resulting from the reduced cost of doing business.

The elimination (or at minimum drastic reduction) of the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAPS, or "food stamps") will allow for all the billions of dollars required to feed the lazy to be used to help pay off America's debt, lowering interest rates and helping to curb the global financial panic.  This will help usher in a new period of stability in the global markets, and America will be the the leadership role of one of the greatest economic turnarounds in the world's history.

Obama's Troubles the Result of His Policies, Not His Approach

I recently came across a Bloomberg commentary piece written by a man named William Pesek. The article was loosely structured around a premise asserting that U.S. President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard have much in common.

While I do not necessarily dispute the premise in and of itself, the author's reasoning could not have been more off-the-mark. The main argument in the piece was that neither Obama nor Gillard are "radical" enough to overcome cynical detractors in opposition parties whose only goal is to derail the political ambitions of the two respective leaders.


The author cites GOP opposition to Obama's "Jobs Bill", in particular his unsubstantiated proposal to cut payroll taxes. What Pesek conveniently fails to mention are the accompanying tax and spending increases that render the proposal a net increase in the size and scope of the U.S. federal government.


The following passage from the article best synopsizes the author's misguided logic:

"The only answer for Gillard and Obama is to get radical -- be bold, think big and fight for your ideals. Neither leader seems set to do that, or able to sell their messages."

William Pesek obviously isn't all that attuned to U.S. politics. Obama is by far and without question the most radical president in the history of the United States. Republicans oppose his policies not because they want nothing more than to obstruct him, but because his policies are genuinely bad ideas that have already been tried (two stimulus bills, cash for clunkers, auto and bank bailouts, etc.). The reality is that to Obama, "economic stimulus" translates to "multibillion dollar slush fund for violent union thug donors".

He is the most hyper-partisan president in the nation's history, and indisputably the most corrupt --- and by a wide margin. Never before has a president tripled the nation's debt for no purpose other than to redistribute trillions of dollars in confiscated wealth to campaign donors and political allies. Obama has done so at the direct expense of the American economy.

Most Republicans are not saboteurs, and thus are not motivated to destroy the country and its economy. Anyone who doubts that Obama's treacherous policies and initiatives are designed to do just that is either naive or badly uninformed.