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AdvertisingAge magazine (online) reports that Google is discussing it’s ranking algorithm with members of the mainstream media.  They seem to think that with Google on their side they’ll recover from the lost advertising revenue that resulted from decreased circulation.  But I think that rather than bring up the mainstream media it will bring Google down.  (h/t MichelleMalkin.com)

Background on Google’s ranking

Google’s primary goal has always been to provide the best search results so that Internet visitors will continue to use their free service.  Once those visitors use the free service Google mixes ads into the search results so that they can make money. It’s an excellent business model for the Internet, giving both visitors and advertisers what they want.

The ranking algorithm is the series of programs that Google runs to determine which pages on the Internet get reported first when someone searches for a particular word.  This applies to Google and every other search engine on the Internet, some of which get a lot of their information from Google.

For the most part the way Google’s algorithm works now is that the pages that get linked to the most (from other pages) will show up at the top of the list of results that Google provides.  There are other factors such as relevance and probably some unspoken preferential treatment given to Google’s own advertisers.
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King country seems to be putting pressure on Key Bank over one of their customers’ labor dispute.  I’m not surprised that a union would resort to treachery and heavy handedness.  I am surprised that a county government would act as union thugs in a labor dispute.

The Business Examiner Daily reports “Trucking labor dispute ropes in bank“.  The simple explanation is that King County government seems to be trying to put pressure on Key Bank to, in turn, put pressure on Oak Harbor Freight to cave to the union’s demands.

We saw the same thing a few months ago in Illinois when a union pressured a bank first to make risky loans to a failing business and then, when that didn’t work,  to make risky loans to former employees of that unionized business that was forced to close.  It wasn’t the bank’s fault that they closed.  In fact, it was probably party the union’s fault. The business had been unionized just a few years earlier and that fact probably contributed to the company’s inability to remain competitive in the slowing housing market that it supplied.

I think unions have out-lived their usefulness in this country.  There was a time when businesses were out of control and abusing employees because of greed.  Since that time laws have been changed to protect workers.  Unions no longer fill that role in society.
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For capitalism to succeed, individual businesses must be allowed to fail.  Just as in nature the weak must give way so that others may survive, a failing business that is consuming resources must cease to exist as a body so that others may be fed by it’s remains and by the resources it would have consumed.  Sound brutal?  It’s life, and it’s capitalism.  And socialism is no alternative.

As I listen to the supposed outrage at bonuses paid to AIG executives, I wonder about the whole story.  The fact is AIG as we know it should have failed and died out or been replaced with a new business model.  Had that happened there would have been no bonuses.  There would have been other problems as well, but would those problems be worse than what we and the next generation will have to deal with?

There was a local financial failure last September that resulted in the weak being devoured by the strong.  JP Morgan (Chase) purchased assets and some liabilities from WaMu when it was in receivership.  That move was capitalism at it’s finest.  Chase grew and their stock went up.  WaMu’s depositors kept their money and many (not all) of their employees kept their jobs.  And that was before the $700B (i.e. $380B) Wall Street bailout.

“We’re in favour of what the government is doing, but we’re not relying on what the government is doing. We would’ve done it anyway,” said Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive.

Under socialism it’s the chosen that survive.  Some may be weak but under socialism they are protected or made stronger by a powerful government which no one can argue against.  So like the genetically flawed animal that is allowed to propagate in captivity when it would have died out in the wild, weak business models in weak markets are propped up and propagated in the economic captivity of socialism.  But who’s paying for the zoo?  The taxpayer, of course.
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For those of you who refuse to question popular theories of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming, maybe you should reconsider.  I’m not asking anyone to accept my view without question, I’m asking you to question both sides of the issue.  If you’re a liberal who claims to be open-minded that should be no problem for you.

I’m certainly not the only one questioning the issue, nor are conservatives the only ones.  It seems that top scientists in Japan are questioning the man-made aspect of global warming.  They question the data used to come to those conclusions and they challenge the climate modeling theories that global warming alarmism is based on.

I’m not used to seeing snow on the ground in mid-March in Tacoma.  All across the country record low temperatures have been set this year.  How is that consistent with the idea of man-made global warming?  Have we solved the problem and this is the result? And if we’ve solved it then we can stop spending tax dollars on it, right?
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Now that Barry has been in office for 53 days, let’s look at his track record.

Don Surber has a list of 52 mistakes that Barry made in his first 52 days in office.  Oh, and don’t forget Day 53. (h/t MichelleMalkin.com)

It’s funny, too, that during the campaign I frequently asked Barry supporters the question, “what qualifies him to be President.”  No one could ever answer it.  The closest they came was, “he’ll surround himself with good people.”  My response of course was to explain that even after he got that ‘good advice’ from those ‘good people’, he still had to make the decisions himself.

But has anyone noticed how many problems those ‘good people’ have?  Problems that make them drop out of the nomination process.  Problems that would normally disqualify someone for a job.  Like a tax cheat that’s running the Treasury (and the IRS).  Good people, my foot.

So far, not so good.  A recent poll says that almost 3/4 of Americans think that the stimulus package won’t work.

And for the whiners who are going to ask why I’ve fed this to FeedTacoma, I’ll just point out that 181,824 people voted for Barry in Pierce county.  And when your children and grandchildren start asking why they pay so much in taxes, you can refer back to this and explain it.  You voted for an bumbling idiot.

I was troubled by a post on the TNT blog recently that talked about ACORN members showing up at a city council meeting in Tacoma and asking for government support and funding for their agenda.

ACORN members spoke during Citizen’s Forum, a once-per-month chance for citizens to address council members about items that are not part of the meeting agenda. Others in the group sat in the council chambers, and all of them wore red.

ACORN spokesman Mike Swenson said the group made a conscious decision not to appear militant.

I wonder how long their restraint will last considering ACORN’s efforts in other cities.

Here’s what happened in a Los Angeles school board meeting:

The members of ACORN and United Teachers Los Angeles — all wearing bright red shirts — entered the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education meeting on Tuesday afternoon, sat down and began chanting.

Police said the protesters were staging an illegal occupation of a public building. The district said no arrests would occur as long as members of media were in building.

UTLA President A.J. Duffy approached the speakers’ lectern and told the board, “You know why we’re here. You know I’m not leaving this rostrum. You know I’m going to keep talking.

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I have a dog that kicks in her sleep when she’s probably dreaming that she’s running.  It’s kinda cute until it happens at 4 am.  She sleeps on the bed so I get kicked.  She barks in her sleep, too.  Also cute most of the time.

But as you can see from this video, it can also be dangerous and disconcerting for a dog.  Maybe we need to get some money from the stimulus package to research this problem and find a cure.

h/t MichelleMalkin.com