The economy has been up and down.  The Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ have all fall a great deal in the last few weeks.  Many people believe the government should bail out the failing companies to “save” the economy.  I don’t think it will be enough.  We have based our economy on credit, and credit must be paid back.  Stricter lending policies must be brought back.  People not able to pay back a loan should not get it.  That may be harsh, but these are obviously hard times.  The national deficit is out of control.  We must stop spending money, and keep taxes low.  The government shouldn’t spend money it doesn’t have.  Raising taxes in an unstable economic climate would be disastrous.  It would slow the economic recovery further.

The next four years are going to be historic.  Either a female VP or a black President will lead the country through the worst ecomonic conditions in a very long time.  I do not doubt that we will recover, but it will take time and wise leadership.

Viral marketing is not new, but its recent growth and increased power have brought it to the forefront of every corporation’s marketing department.  Every conscience marketer of product or service is trying to create a way for the customers to work for them.  File-sharing on services like Kazaa or on networking standards like BitTorrent is a great example of viral marketing.  A music customer rips a CD and uploads the music files to share with friends or strangers alike.  This is the perfect example of a virus in the market.  The music starts with one customer, and then someone else downloads the song.  If they like it, the song is shared with more people.  If they like it enough, that someone else may purchase other songs or albums from that artist, go to a concert, or become a die-hard fan willing to spend hundreds of dollars on merchandise and experiences related to that artist, just like some of the fans of Nine Inch Nails did.

On Sunday, March 2nd, 2008, Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV for sale in a variety of ways.  First, they offer a $5 package including all 36, DRM-free tracks in your choice of high-quality MP3, an open source, lossless format called FLAC, or in the Apple Lossless format which will work in iTunes.  This package also includes many extra features.  The next choice for $10 includes all of the above and a 2-disc CD pack shipped in April.  For $75, you get the five-dollar package, plus the 2-disc CDs, plus 2 hardcover books, plus a data DVD with source .wav files of the recording sessions for remixing, plus a Blu-ray disc of the 36 tracks in extremely high-resolution audio.  The last choice for $300 is a limited edition collection of only 2,500 sets signed and numbered by Trent Reznor which include all of the above and a four-LP set of Ghosts I-IV.  Next to all of these choices to purchase they offered Ghost I, consisting of 9 DRM-free tracks, for free to download as a sample.  They have also posted this sample on BitTorrent among other file-sharing avenues.  Giving away something for free to entice customers to buy more is not a new concept, but doing it in the music industry, which has so readily sued its customers for sharing the music, is innovative.  The standard thought in the industry is that if you give your music away for free the customers won’t buy anything from you.  That theory is starting to fall apart and Nine Inch Nails’ album release is a prime example for how the industry can virally market the music and still make money on it and other premium products or services.  By Tuesday, March 4th, all 2,500 limited edition collections had been sold for $300 each; that’s $750,000 from just the most expensive of the choices.  It’s too early to say how well Nine Inch Nails will do from this release and marketing strategy, but I’m pretty confident that it will be a large success.  Included with all of the packages are desktop wallpapers for your monitor, and more importantly I might add, twenty-two images specifically designed for use on the web.  They range in sizes and design for instant messaging icons, webpage banners, images for blog posts, and any number of other uses.  Nine Inch Nails wants to give its fans and all of the people who download the free sample an easy way to advertise and spread its product.  Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and many other bands or artists are quickly catching onto the fact that viral marketing of their music is an important and viable means of generating revenue.  They are also realizing that penalizing the fans for sharing the music with others is only increasing the number of people aware of the band and potential customers.

The reason I choose this campaign is because it is close to my interests and my experience.  I am very interested in technology and music.  The recent technological changes in the music industry have all happened within the grasp of my lifetime.  The most significant change is the digital conversion which has happened most recently.  Within this decade, 2000 to 2010, I believe that most music will move from a physical medium, such as record, cassette, or CD, to the digital medium.  Digital allows for much more flexibility in the quality, access, transportability, et cetera.  From listening to songs online, I probably bought 5 or 6 albums and then got my friends to buy several albums after listening to the music with them.  The songs we listened to were less quality than when the songs were played on the radio, and much poorer quality than the songs on CD.  The lower quality encouraged me to not be satisfied with the free listen but to pay for a higher quality or premium version.  One of the music industry’s main concerns is the availability of pristine, high-quality digital songs that can be copied limitlessly.  However, most consumers aren’t criminals and would be willing to pay for those perfect songs.  This leaves the door open to give out samples of music at moderate sound quality for the purposes of viral marketing.  The customer can get a medium quality sample of an album for free on a social networking site such as Last.fm or Facebook, which then entices them to buy the lossless, or perfect, quality full album from a music store or from the artist’s webpage.  Change is coming for the music industry, whether they like it or not.  There is a great opportunity for them to embrace file-sharing as a means of viral marketing and still be profitable, instead of litigating the fans for just spreading the word, and product, of their favorite music artist, which in the end only hurts themselves.

When oil is gone we are going to have to move to other high density energy sources or face human disasters the world has never seen. Wars, famine, disease, and the breakdown of today’s society. Clean coal and nuclear energy are the most easily expandable sources of energy within the small time frame we have left. Cars will have to be moved to electricity to plug into these sources. Alternative energy will continue to be researched, but I don’t see them replacing oil as the dominate source of everyone’s energy.

Within the next few decades, increasing petroleum prices will wreck havoc on our economy and individual lives. I’m not sure we will be able to survive as we are now. Populations are probably going to decrease, as food costs are going to go up. People will leave the cities because they can’t afford to be there, and more land will revert back to farms. What ever happens, the end of oil will be painful.

The growing trend for citizens to keep relying on the government for more and more is quite disturbing. FEMA, Social Security, welfare, and universal healthcare are programs where an individual’s responsibilities have been taken or moved over to the government to manage, as if it could manage it better. People need to step up and take charge. The government doesn’t need to do everything for you. It wasn’t designed to do that. If we are going to live in a nanny state, why would anyone want to work and provide for themselves? The incentive would be to take the government handouts and do nothing in return. This is completely wrong. It’s immoral, unproductive, and un-American. We are called to be the best we can be, both by God and by the capitalist system. If you live in America you have been give so many blessing by God, working your hardest is the least you can do in appreciation. In the capitalist system, rewards are give to success; leaching off of the success of others hurts the economy and reduces the incentives for hard workers (because they’re rewards will be taken by the government and redistributed to the undeserving “failures” in capitalism).

Let me make this clear, I do not think pure capitalism is the way we need to go. Welfare is very important and I’m not saying it should be abolished. However, I think it should be run by the states and should have a time period or some limit. This limitation would prevent people from staying on government welfare their entire lives. Private charity would play an even larger part than it does today, if you removed national welfare, the tax burden that causes, and the current state welfare systems and replaced them with a limited welfare program by the states.

National universal healthcare is appalling to me. It removes my right to have no healthcare plan and just pay for expenses as they come. Setting up a system like this removes everyone’s responsibilities. They’re saying you’re too stupid to go out an choose you method of paying for healthcare, so we are going to step in and make that decision for you. Look, you even get to choose a level of service! The supporters are going to say that the program is for the poor and underprivileged, so they can get health insurance. This may seem harsh, but it’s not the government’s job to bail out the “failures” of the capitalist system. By providing them with free or cheap healthcare when they cannot afford to attain it without government assistance, what incentives to work harder and move up in “class” does this procure?

Back down on the personal level, people always seem to find someone or something else to blame. Grow up! Be a mature individual and take responsibilities for any of your actions, right and wrong. If you make poor grades in school, don’t blame the professor or the test. Take responsibility for doing poorly and study harder next time. At work, mistakes happen, confess if you’ve done something incorrectly.

Financial responsibility has disappear with the arrival of the credit card. The amount of debt in this country is astounding! You people out there need to stop buying stuff you can’t afford! Be responsible and buy only what you need if you are in debt. Don’t purchase items on credit, save up until you can afford it. If you do finance something, pay each payment out fully or more. Don’t let the interest grow! Hard work and a tight wallets lead to prosperous lives. Be a responsible consumer.

This country has become, or maybe always was, a sissy state. Both on the national and personal levels people are lacking in responsibility for themselves and their actions. This is a major problem. If everyone is telling the government to take care of them, then no one is left to to take care of anyone, because we are the government in this country. We have to stand up and take responsibility.

First, for the law-abiding drivers, it gives them the time left to make a judgment call if they need to slam on the brakes or continue through. For that matter, you might as well have timers in all colors of the signal: red, yellow, and green.

Second, for the red light runners, it gives them no excuse for running the light. They knew how much time was left before it turned red. Now, after the timers are in place, I agree with the installment of the cameras, because the government in charge did everything to increase public safety without revenue enhancement, before they started ticketing people.

Third, for the city planners, studies would need to be done, but the timer lights may improve traffic efficiency slightly and increase driver patience. When motorists can count down the time left for green, it helps increase driver satisfaction with the length of the lights. There have been times when I could swear the red light for my time to go was three times as long as the cycle before me.

Just because we’ve had the standard green, yellow, red traffic signal lights for all of this time doesn’t mean we can’t change or improve on them if it would increase efficiency or safety. Adding timers to the lights would allow drivers to know exactly the time left before the next light. I know this would a beneficial addition to my driving experience.

Just the other day on Texas A&M University’s campus, I was walking to my car when two bike cops pulled over two women on bicycles. I don’t know what for or what happened, but they did ask for a driver’s license. From the looks of the students, they were headed to the Rec Center to workout, so they might not have their id. Before the pull-over, the officers on bikes where just standing around waiting for something to happen. I’m not saying that the girls got a ticket, but if that is what happened, the officers where on a stake-out. Do two women on bikes pose such a danger to society that two officers should spend their time watching people and bike move by? Couldn’t they be doing something else more productive or at a level that requires their skills, like say, investigating a robbery or assault that happen frequently on the North Gate side of campus? (North Gate is a strip of dance halls and bars, that have had a few assaults aimed at foreigners and minorities in the past couple of years.) I think that instead of focusing on alternative revenue gaining, the police force should be doing their job: enforcing criminal laws. Unfortunately, many of the laws are written to increase revenue instead of protect the public wellbeing. A shift in law-making and a review of current laws would need to occur to make a difference.

This morning on my drive to class, I saw an unmarked car that had pulled over what from all indications was a speeder. That is a complete contradiction of the goal of speed limit enforcement. By driving an unmarked vehicle, the police officer blends into traffic, allowing individuals to drive as they would. When he/she pulls over one speeder, the government will get the ticket revenue, but for the majority of the other cars on the highway will continue to drive at higher speeds. It’s like a wolf in sheep’s wool. However, when an officer is driving a patrol vehicle, it stands out and traffic slows to the appropriate speed. This accomplishes the goal of speed limits (“safer” driving conditions), but does not boost the government revenue. There is a conflict of interests when the law enforcement adds to the government wallet. The officials will be encouraged to “enforce” more and the legislature will be encouraged to write more laws to be enforced, and judges would be more likely to find cases in more the way of the government.

I’m not saying we live in a country that is corrupt, but to prevent corruption takes a vigilant populous. We need to be the moderators of our government, not the other way around.

The U.S. federal deficit is going to be approximately $500 billion this year. This is an insane number. $500,000,000,000. Where is all of the money going? The war in Iraq, you say? Well, yes, but what if that was just a cover and the cost of the war was padded? Could the government be siphoning money from itself to pay for some unknown to most, super secret project? The answer could be yes, and I know that the government does hide money for “regular” top secret projects. With all likelihood, there are probably weapons platforms orbiting Earth right now, posed as communications satellites. Well, if the government can do that, couldn’t they feed a giant project with the supposed cost of the war in Iraq?

Just a thought. Who knows what a possible project could be?

Everyone talks about becoming energy independent. Well, it’s not going to happen if oil companies aren’t allowed to drill off the East, West, and Gulf Coasts and/or Alaska. We also need more refineries.

Taking more taxes from the oil companies recent profits is not going to help the situation nor would it be good precedent in our country. Private business is a cornerstone in functioning society. If gas becomes socialized bad things will happen. Most socialized programs fail miserably.

U.S. Congress, do not even consider taxing the oil companies to get their profits or even think about socializing gas!

One fun, radical idea to fix our oil problem is to invade Canada! We’d get more cold weather croplands, more timber, more oil & natural gas, and only a little more than 30 million people. California has about 36 million. The U.S. would double in physical size. Canada has lots of fossil fuel opportunities. It would be a great economic boost. They don’t have much of a military. They can still have their provinces, but will now become states.

A less radical plan would be to slowly start buy their land right out from under them. Then, the landowners would be American and they could force the parliaments to join the Union.

All we have to do next is move south. Western Hemisphere domination!

1.) Celebrities are treated like they’re so special; like they are another class of people. They’re not; they have just as many if not more problems than the rest of us. One of their problems is paparazzi. I don’t have to worry about getting chased by camera toting peeping toms. Do you?

2.) So many people look up to them as role models, but they aren’t very good ones. Their marriages are a joke. It’s amazing if they last 10 years and unbelievable if they are over 20 years. Is that characteristic you want to spread across the country, because the divorce rate is already at least 50%. I’d really like to see that come down, how about you?

3.) Celebrities, directly or indirectly, promote physical attractiveness, which can make a lot of people uncomfortable with the way they look. Vanity, cosmetic surgery, and low confidence levels are effects of this beauty aspect to celebrity.

4.) Why do they deserve awards every year? Did they do anything other than work for a living like the rest of us do? Should we all have awards like the best wall painter or the best assistant?

5.) The final reason I’m going to present is how celebrity is detracting attention away from more important issues and events in our lives. Anyone who watches TV knows that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston split up last year, but how many people know the name of the position that Alberto Gonzales holds? People retain all of this information about so many “celebrities” but they don’t care to know about the people who hold power in our country, in the world?

Celebrities aren’t an upper race of people. They have many problems, some we have, some we don’t. Celebrity creates the feeling of inadequacy or imperfection for many people. They don’t do anything other than work for a living like the rest of us. Finally, celebrity-centered culture is dumbing down our citizenry.

Don’t misunderstand me, I enjoy movies and TV and I don’t want to end that industry. I just want to bring the actors/actresses off of their pedestals.

Anyway, I am somewhere in between Republican and Libertarian, but I’ll mostly vote Republican because it’s more practical. I’m pretty conservative; I think that we should change quite a few things to the way they were back before the World Wars. I’m against gay marriage, and abortion should happen only for a few reasons. I don’t believe there should be any national legislation for or against abortion, because that is something the states have jurisdiction over. Then some states could ban it and others would probably allow it. The federal government should really keep its neck out of so many things. It’s was created to manage national defense, national order (civil rights and liberties), international relations, interstate commerce (examples would be national and international corporations, highways, internet, and basically anything else that crosses state boundaries), and a few other roles, not what it has shaped into since the New Deal and Democrat control. I believe strongly in the death penalty. Public executions for major offenses should be brought back. It is a great deterrent. I can’t think of more to say right now so that’s the end of my autobiography.