I listened to part of President Bush's speech this morning.  Interesting stuff.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,112326,00.html

I'm glad he brought up the full faith and credit issue. He probably realizes that at least parts of the "Defensive of Marriage Act" could (should in my opinion) be struck down because of the "full faith and credit" clause in the U.S. Constitution (see the text of the speech for a little bit more on this).

I can't see getting enough support (2/3 of both houses of congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures) to pass the amendment. So... my guess is that we will soon have a bunch of same sex people holding a marriage license and demanding the "full faith and credit" clause be enforced. In the case of the California licenses there may be some problems, at least for a while if not permanent, because of the law the voters passed against gay marriage. But in Massachusetts it's inevitable it will happen.  While it's possible almost anything can happen in any court, include the U.S. Supreme Court, it seems to me that the full faith and credit clause will most likely be upheld.  This will then give us people with concealed weapons licenses a lot of leverage in being able carry in all states and cities in this country and with “our bucket of water“ being carried by some of the anti-gun bigots that are actively trying to restrict our civil rights.

I know... a long chain of events each dependent on all the previous events but it's a pleasant thought - a bunch of bigots having to face their own hypocrisy.

No need to give bigots my money when there are better alternatives available.  Here is what I told them:

It is with great reluctance that I do this. I have been very impressed with Google in almost every endeavor they have undertaken.

I just deleted my ad campaign and won't be creating any new ones as long as Google continues it's policy on the restriction of certain civil rights. I will also be contacting other Google advertisers whom I would normally purchase from to inform them of your policies and to tell them I will be finding different suppliers if this policy is continued and they continue to advertise with Google.

Please see the following links for more details if desired.

http://blog.joehuffman.org/archive/2004/02/09/177.aspx

http://blog.joehuffman.org/archive/2004/02/11/179.aspx

http://blog.joehuffman.org/archive/2004/02/12/180.aspx

Regards,

 

Joe Huffman

I had a big flood of entries in Boomershoot 2004 last week.  Probably a record in terms of dollars, but not in number of entries.  I'm past the breakeven point for the actual event expenses now and can start paying off some of the loan for the Taj Mahal (http://www.boomershoot.org/TajMahal/Magazine.htm).

Yesterday Ry tested out a new mix someone emailed to me.  It comes close to meeting our needs and has some big advantages.  We probably can tweak it enough to work for us and still retain the advantages.

Ralph Nader threw his hat into the presidental ring.  The Republicians are rejoicing and the Democrats are whining:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64417-2004Feb23.html

This election is going to boring.  And with a Bush sweep he will probably feel he has a mandate to implement a police state should he want it.  Heavy sigh.  At least he probably won't make much, if any, effort to take our guns away in the near future -- at least that is a partial deterrent against a police state.

After having Google tell me they don't allow people to advertise product related to the exercise of certain civil rights I started looking at alternatives.  It turns out you can place an ad on Overture.com and get advertising to show up on http://search.yahoo.com, http://www.Search.MSN.com, http://altavista.com, and http://www.cnn.com/SEARCH/.  There are some downsides:

• The minimum rate is $0.10/click - twice that of Google.
• Minimum of $50 up front instead of $5.00 from Google.
• It can take a few days before they will approve your ads compared to minutes for Google.

The upsides are:

• They didn't have a problem with my guns and explosives product.
• They did disallow a few words and phrases but they gave rational reasons and I respect their conclusions.
• They have better tools for determining the phrases and key words that are being used by people doing the searches.
• I'm getting a lot more hits!
• Their tracking is better.  They have a cookie system set up that will report whenever someone clicks on an ad ultimately, even days later, clicks on my entry form.  I can see what key words are actually generating people interested in entering the event versus just looking at pictures and watching the videos.
• I can see in the log file exactly what the raw query was and how it was morphed into a key phrase of mine to generate a hit.  This means I can figure out the keywords people are using and put those on my pages if it's a good match.  Key words that aren't a good match but are still morphed into a hit I can tweak to avoid the hit.
• No requirement for minimum click rates, Google has been dropping words and phrases if they don't meet their minimum number of clicks per impression.  My friends and I have probably provided a dozen clicks or so just to keep me from losing the keywords.

Kim du Toit is by far better than anything else, but he is doing this as a favor and I don't have any control over being able do this on a regular basis.

Here is the break down on people that have clicked on banners, ads, and links from various places so far this month:

KimduToit.com 402
Shotgunnews.com 144
Overture Ads 36 (started on February 14th)
Google Adwords 23 (running all month and probably 12 of those were my own and friends)
JoeHuffman.org (all personal sites): 23
RyJones.org/com Gawth.com EveryoneEveryWhereAlways 17
Xeniahs.org (and other banner ads place by her) 2

So... comparing Overture to Google I get hits at a rate of about 7 a day versus about 0.6/day.  Over ten times as good.  I'm going to tell Google to get lost.  No point paying bigots your money when there are better alternatives available.

Not only has MA said it will be issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples in May, but San Francisco has married thousands in the last week and Chicago might start soon:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4251510/

My take on this is that there is a good chance this issue will dominate in this year's elections. Although I think marriage for same sex couples is the correct way to go I don't think the population at large will stand for it yet. I think it will polarize people so much that people that would have normally not voted will register to vote and then vote against those pushing for it -- Democrats. If the Republicans can find some way to appear sympathetic to same sex couples while still prohibiting their marriage they will win big.

Another coffin nail ready to be pounded into place is the illusion of the Democrats as understanding the little guy and protecting them from the rich people. Both Kerry and Edwards are multi-millionaires and don't really have a clue of what it's like to work at a real job for a living.

You could be seeing the final death throes of the party. I'm not at all thrilled about having a single dominate party. Lots of risk there but the destruction of the Democrats is not entirely unwelcome either. The die-hard Democrats that I know are all blatant socialists or communists -- more proven deadly and failed political systems have not been invented.

Maybe the Libertarian party can fill the power vacuum that occurs if the Democrats implode. One can only hope and push a little bit here and there...

Every once in a while I hear someone, either in person or on some news outlet, claim something to the effect that we need to learn how to life in peace with the Islamic fundamentalists that wish to do us harm. Basically what they are saying is that we must be doing something that pisses them off and we should stop doing whatever that is and then we could get along. Putting this as gently as I can - people that believe that are delusional. Read Osama bin Laden's letter to America (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,845725,00.html) carefully. Here are some excerpts:

Another data point, if that wasn't clear enough, was a comment from a guy I know at the CIA who works with psychologists there (no, I can't prove I actually talked to someone at the CIA, those guys don't hand out business cards). He told me, "Very few people in the U.S. understand, or can understand, how different these people think from us. Their thought processes are completely foreign to us."

What are you going to say to someone that says you must give up "trading with interest", our constitutional form of government and accept a government based on the Quran or prepare to fight? My response is, expressed with a great deal of sadness, our resolve is just as great as yours and until you can respect our way of life we will take this fight to you and we will kill as many of your warriors as we have to before they ever set foot on our soil. We will do our best to make sure this fight is on your soil with your homes and with your families in harms way. Our homes and families will continue our way of life in as much peace as we can give them. You can respect us or you can fear us, but you will not harm us, prepare to harm us, or conspire to harm us, or you will imprisoned and/or killed.  I realize you are willing to die for your cause but there is a certain amount of symmetry in that -- we are willing to kill for ours.

Yesterday was my parents 50th Wedding anniversary.  We had a get together at my brother's house.  Lots of relatives and some of the neighbors showed up.  Everyone seemed to have a good time. 

Afterwards my son James and I went out to the new explosives magazine to do a little bit of work on it and check on how the roof was holding up to the snow load.  Everything seemed to be fine.

Barb, James, Xenia and I went to the movie 50 First Dates after we got back. Some of the humor was questionable in the first half of the movie and neither Barb nor I were very amused, but the second half of the movie was good and we ended up liking the movie as a whole.

A non-response if I ever saw one.  I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

-----Original Message-----
From: AdWords Support 
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 4:15 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Cc: Ry Jones; Stephanie Sailor
Subject: Re: [#7002486] Your Google AdWords Approval Status

Hello Joe,

Thanks for your suggestion. We appreciate hearing from our advertisers and encourage you to continue to let us know how we could improve the Google AdWords experience. In order to maintain a high quality of service for our advertisers, we are always interested in making improvements to the program.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available. 

Sincerely,

Charlene
The Google AdWords Team

Subject: Re: [#7002486] Your Google AdWords Approval Status
From: Joe Huffman
Date: Wed, February 11, 2004 20:27
To:

Thank you for the clarification on keywords.  That helps a great deal.  I
will abide by your restriction more carefully in the future.

I realize this almost for certain isn't your personal decision, but I am
perplexed by the restriction.  Your restrictions on firearms sales brings
up a flurry of concerns about the ethics of your company and appears to be
significantly out of step with the majority of Americans.  For example in
a recent Zogby poll
(http://client.xntec.com/clientpages/oleary/report0104.html) 79% of
Americans surveyed supported the right of the people to carry concealed
firearms in public.  And all the major candidates for U.S. President agree
individuals have a right to keep and bear arms:

http://ww2.americansforgunsafety.com/31524155311.html

So what is the basis for Google to restrict people from supporting,
through sales of firearms, this constitutionally guaranteed right?  Are
there other Constitutionally guaranteed rights you restrict as well?  I
really don't see the difference between your restrictions on people
engaged in firearms and ammunition sales and someone trying to defeat
Constitutional protections against slavery.  Do you have restrictions
against selling property to Jews or blacks attending certain schools?
Just what sort of ethical framework does Google use to disapprove keywords
and phrases?

Again, I realize it's probably not your decision, but I would appreciate
it if you would pass my concerns on to those that do make the decisions.

Thank you.


Joe Huffman
Event Director
----
http://www.boomershoot.org/

AdWords Support said:
> Hello Joe,
>
> Thank you for your email. I understand that you would like to have more
> guidelines on constructing ads and keywords.
>
> At this moment, we do not have a public list of specific keywords,
> subject matter, or products that are unacceptable according to our
> policy.
>
> To clarify the issue of gun-related keywords, keywords that advertise
> guns or similar products, like 'tactical rifle' and 'sniper rifle,' are
> unacceptable. However, we do allow keywords such as 'rifle training' and
> 'rifle class' because they are specific keywords that are advertising
> for a service or event, but not actual firearms.
>
> Please feel free to email us at https://secure.lasthome.net/mail-lasthome.net/src/compose.php?send_to=adwords-support%40google.com if you have
> additional questions or concerns.
>
> We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising
> available.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Charlene
> The Google AdWords Team
>
> Original Message Follows:
> ------------------------
> From: "Joe Huffman" <https://secure.lasthome.net/mail-lasthome.net/src/compose.php?send_to=joeh%40boomershoot.org>
> Subject: Re: [#7002486] Your Google AdWords Approval Status
> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:13:00 -0000 (GMT)
>
> Do you have a list of these restricted keywords or subject matter that I
> could view?  It would help me to better construct my ad such that I
> avoid the embarrassment of having my keywords disapproved.  I am also
> confused by your statement that ads are not allowed with keywords
> related to guns or similar products but yet you suggest 'rifle training'
> and 'rifle class'.  A better understanding of your policy would help to
> save both you and me time and hassle.
>
> Thank you.
>
>
> Joe Huffman
> Event Director
> ----
> http://www.boomershoot.org/