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Chuck's Occasional Rants (now banned in 15 countries)

This is where I rant about my life, the way things are going, the state of the nation, or anything else that catches my attention. These entries reflect my opinion on a given subject. That opinion may be viewed as anything from informed to insane, but nonetheless it is mine. If you disagree with me, remember no one is forcing you to read this blog. As to the blog name, according to sources, the content of this blog most likely violates certain banned speech laws in 15 countries.

Name:
Location: Parts Unknown, Pennsylvania, United States

I am male, 41, heterosexual, caucasian, and still living (to the best of my knowledge). I won't mention my political views as I am sure that you will figure them out from the entires in this blog (unless you are a Tea Party member in which case you are probably too uneducated and downright stupid to figure it out.)

Monday, January 10, 2005

I've Been A Bad Boy (guess I need a spanking).

Hello again.
Right to the point this time because I am very angry.
You may have noticed the Google Ads and Search Bar running on this page. You may also have noticed (if you are a regular visitor) that Google had been running NFL merchandise ads on the adbar. If you look now, you will see that Google has chosen to run Public Service Ads (PSA's) on the adbar. Now to understand my anger fully, note that I get paid for each click on a regular ad, but I don't get paid for a click on a PSA. I checked the FAQ at Google Adsense for an explanation of why I was getting PSA's and not regular ads. This is what I found (cut and pasted directly from the Google FAQ [copyright Google]):
"Your page may contain sensitive content for which relevant paying ads will not be displayed.
Our system has certain filters in place to protect our advertisers from advertising on pages that could be construed as potentially negative, non-family safe or even offensive. Although the nature of your content may not fit into any of these categories, at times the emphasis of some sensitive subject matters on a page can flag our servers to deliver public service ads to a page."

[Note that I added the bold typeface and the quotation marks]
Apparently, my last entry is so offensive, negative, and non-family safe, that I am no longer allowed to have Google serve its regular ads up on my site. I am hoping that this is a result of the computers at Google wrongly flagging this page and not the result of a human reading and flagging this page. The reason for that is that computers can and do make mistakes based on certain objective criteria. Humans, on the other hand, make decisions based upon somewhat more subjective criteria. If the loss of these ads is due to human decision, well that is just censorship and it will NOT fly on this page. Also, if it is the result of human intervention, all I can say is, "Ever heard of satire??" You know, satire. It is an old method of poking fun at people, goes back to the days of ancient Greek theater, you must of heard about it in a Western Civ class or maybe a Lit class in college! (Or did you skip those classes to screw off in the computer lab?)
Or is this a more sinister plot to silence Liberals everywhere??? Hmmm? Maybe this is a deliberate design to silence the critics of the government. Maybe I mentioned some of the shortcomings of the Bush Administration and that pissed off some mindless Republican prole in the employ of Google, is that it? In short, the last entry is political satire. If that offends you, good! It is supposed to offend some people. If that creates a controversy, good! Controversy means more readers and subsequently (listen up Google) more views of the ads on this page! I never claimed that this page would be family safe, so that point is, in my opinion, irrelevent. Plainly and simply, if Google wanted a page that was safe and tame, then this is the wrong page for that. If that is going to cause problems, so be it, but I will not compromise my views, my opinions, or my style for ANYONE, not even the people who may make me money! I have never sold myself out in the past, and I am not about to start now. Shakespeare once wrote "To thine own self be true." That is a good summation of how I view things. If you can't deal with that, oh well.
If Google should feel the need to respond to this entry, I will, in fairness to Google, publish it (without immediate comment) on this page. I will let my readers take it in for a bit before I publish my comment. That's about as fair as it gets.
Now you know how I feel.
I am Chuck, and this has been my rant.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you don't want to see the PSAs (as I don't for my blogs), check out AGAR the Amazon/Google Ad Replacement. I just stumbled upon it today and it works great.

11:19 PM, February 02, 2005  
Blogger Chuck said...

Anonymous Reader,
First, thank you for reading my blog. I appreciate it.
Second, thanks for the tip, I will check it out as soon as I have a chance.
Also, if you care to comment again, what do you think of the blog overall (good, bad, indifferent), and what is your blog's address so that I can take a look at it? (I am always interested in the how other bloggers do things, what their opinions are, etc.)
Thanks again for the comment.
--Chuck.

11:47 PM, February 02, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

New to this type of pub, find it very good reading, you do good work roy!

8:51 PM, March 29, 2005  
Blogger Chuck said...

Roy,
Thank you for the kind words. Knowing that people actually read what I write, and think that it is good, is very gratifying.
If you don't mind, I have a question for you. What exactly is it about this blog that you like? (Ex. the attitude, the writing style, the general opinions, etc.)
Thanks again for reading my blog and for your comments.
--Chuck.

2:47 AM, April 01, 2005  

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