Some of you will notice that the title of this piece has an internal rhyme scheme. The Google search bot will not. The Google search bot, if it deigns to notice, will sift through the text, giving emphasis to the title, and merrily send people who search for sex (the undisputed champion of search terms on the net), hi-tech, and x-ray specs.

This piece will see nary a peek from people who are looking for sex on the net because there are literally millions of sites out there cajoling the bot into ranking their sites on the coveted first page of Google's search findings for the term sex. There is a remote chance that someone willing to thumb electronically through a few hundred thousand listings for sex might light on the page, see that it is not really about sex, and get off it quicker than Cool Papa Bell could get into bed.

Bots are literal-minded things.

Hi-tech is a nebulous adjective that means pertaining to anything that uses sophisticated technology. It is possible, but not likely, that a few people looking for the latest whiz-bang gadget will peruse this article, notice that it has nothing to do with iPods, Blackberries, or UFOs, and be disappointed.

Why?

Because the Google search bot is inextricably married to HTML. HTML is a markup language designed originally for academic presentations. At its core is the good old-fashioned roman numeral outline that English teachers gleefully have tortured students with since the beginning of time. First your headline, then your main point, then your secondary point, ad nauseum. The HTML equivalent is h1, h2, h3. Bots, being quantitative creatures, determine how relevant your article is to a certain keyword by how frequently the word appears in the article.

Google is a little more sophisticated than that in their search algorithm, but not much more. If they see too many, and only they can determine how many is too many, occurrences of a word in a given electronic space, the bot will discount it because the humans at Google think that someone is trying to manipulate their search results.

Google does not want anyone manipulating their search results without paying for the privilege, thank you very much. If you want natural rankings you had better just follow the outline, Buster, else you can pay Google big bucks to get your site noticed. If your site does not make big bucks, it can still get noticed by being an educational site, or being what they deem an influential site, which is, of course, a site with links from educational sites.

Google sows nothing, yet reaps the lion's share of benefits on the internet. Google shows promise, but delivers illusion like --well, x-ray specs.

X-ray specs were sold in the ads section of comic books in the days when comics mainly were read by adolescent boys. The ad plainly stated the specs produced an optical illusion, then asked if that really was your friend's body you see under his clothes. If the longevity of the ad is any indicator, they sold tons of them. Kids did not buy those comics because they were looking for x-ray specs, they bought them because they were hooked on the exploits of Ironman, Batman, or Superman.

If Superman was an internet creation, the character would be offered for free because no one would pay to see a new character. Having already paid the ISP once for access, why should they? Unless Superman's creators paid Google, or one of its imitators, money to get the site noticed, it would languish and die. The genius marketers who sold x-ray specs would not pay the owner to have their ad on the Superman pages, they would pay Google. Google, in turn, would pay the Superman owner a pittance for delivering a possible customer to the specs site.

Of course, the ad would mainly appear on sites pertaining to x-rays, technical specs, or technical specs on x-rays. It might pop up on the Superman site if the Man of Steel used his x-ray vision. Not many x-ray specs would get sold.

The manufacturers of x-ray specs would be much better off with their own site selling their product directly to adolescents using phrases from the ad. Is that his body you "see" under his clothes? Look right through the flesh and see the bones underneath.

Superman? Forget Superman. Superman has been borged; he is irrelevant.

Once the internet held the promise of being a blank canvas, an invitation to creativity, a chance for global communication and expression.

Instead, we have a motley collection of pornography, sales pitches, and how-to articles.

rau·cous

1. harsh; strident; grating: raucous voices; raucous laughter.

2. rowdy; disorderly: a raucous party.

George Carlin is dead.

The hippy dippy weatherman's heart gave out on him.

I am surprised they let him go so long. I am surprised they did not shut him up. Maybe they just thought he was a crazy old man, or maybe no one took him seriously enough.

Who are "they?" George Carlin knew.

In the end, he was a modern Diogenes seeking truth and telling it when he found it.

People paid to see him rant and then went home to their comfortable lives.

I will miss the old bastard.

McCainanites, Bushskovites, and other assorted neocons are still happily hacking on Ron Paul.

Michael Goldfarb, Deputy Communications Director for the anointed Republican standard bearer John McCain writes:

"There should be plenty of room for the Paulnuts in Obama's big tent. If Rev. Wright isn't exactly a 9/11 Truther, at least he's breathed new life into the Pearl Harbor Truther movement. Imagine a newsletter coauthored by the Reverend and Lew Rockwell--now that's racial harmony."

Dave Nalle, part of a self-professed "sinister cabal of superior writers ," states:

"...McCain has never presented himself as 'pro-war' that's just their (Paultards, Paulnuts, insert your own pejorative) interpretation. The actual war in Iraq is over and McCain is not currently advocating any other new wars. That McCain supports keeping troops in Iraq until the country is past its current troubles is more of an anti-war position, since our presence there reduces the level of violence and the risk of Iranian invasion and a full-scale war."

Apparently the tired old neocons calling themselves the "New Right," through some arcane process of Orwellian double-think, actually believe that Paul supporters are as stupid as they take pains to portray them.

I have news. It's not that Paul supporters are idiots, the plain fact is that drivel like these two have written would reduce any normal thinking person to incoherent rage.

It is no wonder that such inane nattering produces comments like, "You suck."

Goldfarb trots out Reverend Wright like a circus trick dog and, for a change, decides to use his reprehensible guilt by association tactics on the Ron Paul camp. Why not? If it worked on Obama, it will work on Paul. No sense letting the truth stand in the way of a good smear.

Nalle, from his superior perch, actually has the gall to tell us the war in Iraq is over. Then, apparently just for fun, he goes on to explain how continuing the non-war is actually a peace position.

That sucks, alright.

I was talking to my son the other night. He told me that it was impossible to write political satire because the real political situation is more absurd than we can imagine.

We have a sitting President who manufactured reasons to go to war with a nation that presented no immediate threat to the US. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead.

The only constitutional conservative in the Presidential primaries was branded a nutjob and a kook because he didn't believe that debacle to be sound foreign policy.

When the GOP crashes and burns this November, bring a bag of marshmallows to roast.

It's going to be a hell of a show.

The fabulous Bo Diddley has left us.

Blues shouter.

Killer rhythm guitar player.

Master showman.

...and he could dance his ass off.

Lift a glass.

We won't see his like again.

I like Ron Paul. I like everything about him. He is intelligent, affable; has a fine sense of humor. I don't think 911 was a nefarious government plot. Ron Paul doesn't think so, either. I don't think George Bush is a shape-shifting reptilian alien. I would just about bet that Ron Paul doesn't think so, either.

I am not particularly worried that a neo-nazi contributed $500.00 to Paul's campaign. I don't think that money will buy any influence with Ron Paul. I am pleased, though, that Dr. Paul didn't return the money and get into a tizzy about it. Everybody, even neo-nazis, can say what they please and give money to what candidate they please. I am perfectly happy to let neo-nazis spend their money on Doc Martins, rant on their websites, hell, march in Skokie, Illinois, even spit on the sidewalk-- as long as they harm no one.

I'm worried even less about what gay activist Jamie Kirchick managed to dig up in the old newsletters with Ron Paul's name on them. Kirchick's articles were nothing but a poor attempt at a smear campaign and a pathetic attempt by a beginning journalist to gain notoriety. I'm just a demented Paultard, but I do know what an out-of-context quote is. I have a vague recollection of what a false dilemma is. Sorry, Jamie, but Ron Paul doesn't strike me as a racist. In fact, he strikes me as the only candidate who is actually color-blind in this election. I don't think he cares at all about Afro-Americans, Hispanics, Chinese, women, gays, nazis or any other group you may name. I think he is concerned for everyone's individual rights. He has his priorities straight. No one is any more equal than anyone else.

There are things that do worry me. I worry about people who say that I am wasting my vote when I vote for Ron Paul. The only way to waste your vote is to vote for someone because you think they may win. If you want to make a bet, go see a bookie. If you want to vote for a candidate, look at the issues, then decide.

I worry, too, about people who think Paul is not a conservative because he thinks we have no business in Iraq. When did being a conservative ever involve supporting undeclared wars based on fictitious reasons, or, to be kind, faulty intelligence? I am willing to believe that Bush actually thought there were WMD in Iraq. Most people did. Saddam even led them to believe he had them. What I don't understand is why we're still over there. There ain't no WMD, folks. We looked. They're not there. Time to bring the troops home.

People who shrilly denounce Dr. Paul because he personally opposes abortion worry me, too. Apparently leaving abortion law to the states, where it belongs, is just a tad too inconvenient for them. In the few states that would ban abortion, the mere thought of driving across a state line, or taking a plane to have an abortion gives them a case of the galloping fantods. Do we need an abortion clinic on every corner in case a condom breaks? Sure. Make it a drive-through.

The real reason that I want to see Ron Paul as President is because I am tired. I am tired of taking my shoes off at airports while government employees scan my belongings to make sure I'm not a "terrist." I am tired of the possibility of government thugs kicking down my door because they think I might have drugs in my home. I am tired of candidates at debates laughing like gibbering apes when a man of ideas speaks. I am tired of the IRS getting their grubby little hands on my paycheck before I do. I am tired of my money being worth less and less every year. I am tired of sending our young men and women to kill or be killed in a useless, illegal war.


That's why I'm a Paultard.

I am just plain tired.