Bauer's Transportation Company Bus Shuttle Service

This is the San Francisco Bauer's "Wi-Drive" commuter shuttle bus service. It's the same one used by Facebook and Twitter employees to go to and from work. What this blogger likes about the shuttle bus service is the seats. Wow. They're really thick, cushy, leathery, and luxurious.

You can operate your laptop computer and work online while on your way to work. The Bauer's "Wi-Drive" bus was used by the San Francisco Giants to transport their players to and from that awesome parade after their amazing World Series win.

Need corporate transportation? Call my good friend Gary Bauer. He and Bauer's Transportation delivers for all occasions and transport needs. Bauer's Transportation is at 1-800-546-6688.

Fair Game Shows What Valerie Plame Went Through

Fair Game Shows What Valerie Plame Went Through
By Nikky Raney

Walking into the theater already knowing and being educated about the Valerie Plame & Scooter Libby fiasco could not have prepared anyone for the amazing portrayal done by Naomi Watts as Ms. Plame. Everyone reads the news about what happened and thinks they know, but they had no idea what went on within her personal life or how things really truly changed for her.

The use of real news images and clips from the actual events being re-enacted is brilliant and at the end of the movie the clip plays of the real Valerie Plame giving a testimony on C-Span.

The movie really informs about what happened after 9/11 and what the CIA was doing and figuring out behind the scenes - the difficult calls that had to be made and what it was like to be living a double life and have all these plans and then for it all to fall apart. There were many others whose lives were negatively impacted due to this other than Ms. Plame. The role of her husband, played by Sean Penn, was brilliantly done. Even if the reality of their personal life isn't completely accurate - the portrayal of how he involved himself in the media and how he helped deal with this catastrophe to save his wife's life and reputation as well as his own was brilliant.

It may have been exaggerated by Hollywood, but it's safe to say that the accompanying footage from real news reports across all news platforms help remind the viewer that what they are watching is not complete fiction, but something that really happened. It helps to educate viewers more about the entire scandal besides all the news reports.

Although the accuracy may be questionable about specific details - since the CIA must keep things private to an extent- it shows a good amount of realistic scenarios that lead up to this and the facts match up with the information that was provided.

This movie is truly a must see and was done very well. The lengths the members of the White House went to discredit her husband's op-ed piece in the New York Times was unjust - the fact that he knew what President Bush was telling the American people as "fact" was in fact not true made him want to write about what he did know - because he was doing a service to the American people in educating them on what is real. And those who opposed being "outed" got revenge in a way that ruined the career and safety of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Her life will never be the same and her world was turned upside down.

It is good that Scooter Libby and the others have been put to justice, but it cannot take back all the pain and suffering that the family went through and continues to endure to this day.

This movie should be watched by anyone who followed this story or had an opinion in some way about the way it was handled or who has more questions about it.

Brilliantly done - five stars. The only thing that may be overly controversial is the way the film clearly exposes the Iraq war and the mistakes made and the way that the American people were blatantly lied to by the President, and this may make things worse for President Bush's reputation (if that's possible).

It was really great to see Scooter Libby played as a snarky con man and coming off as truly vile -  David Andrews did a great gob - as did Adam LeFerve as Karl Rove.d It was disgusting to see how some of the journalists reacted though and unimpressive, but accurate.

It'll be interesting to hear what the real people have to say about the portrayals of themselves and how accurate the depictions are. The story follows Ms. Plame's book in a way - the story line converges and includes some direct quotes from her book.


X-Posted At The Future of Journalism

Cal Washington: Huskies 16-13 Win; Cal is Holmoesque

This is the level the University of California Football Program has fallen to. Cal Alumni are starting to call the team "Holmoesque." That term first surfaced two weeks ago after the Oregon loss, as a good Cal friend of this blogger feared a return to those ugly days of yore.

Three losses later, some think we're there. Cal lost to Washington 16 to 13 and this, the third loss in as many games, has Old Blues, Young Blues, and even Middle-Aged Blues fuming.

Tom Holmoe

Cal finished not just 5 and 7, but 3 and 6 in the Pac-10. The worst record in Jeff Tedford's glorious rein as Cal's Head Coach. While not the 1 and 10 season of 2001, Cal's 2010 performance was enough for my friend to say "I hope we don't see a replay of Tom Holmoe, we're starting to look "Holmoesque."

Tom Holmoe, currently the Athletic Director at BYU, was Cal's football coach for five years, posting a 16 and 39 record, the infamous 2001 season, had an 0 and 5 record against Stanford, and caused Cal to forfeit nine scholarships over four years, be banned from postseason bowl eligibility in 2002, Coach Tedford's first year with Cal.

No, this space is not saying Tedford is like Tom Holmoe, only that the stench from that period is still with many Cal faithful, and this season reproduced some bad, sad memories.

The Problem Is The System

SF Chron scribe John Crumpacker's blog on Cal vs. Washington was far too nice and failed capture the massive level of pissed off, pissed-offness expressed by Cal Alumns. Cal's problem is not as simple as replacing one quarterback with another. That's for people who, for whatever reason, fail to pay attention to play design. But the issue is the Cal Offensive system itself.

For some reason that rests in the collective mind of Coach Tedford and Cal Offensive Coordinator Andy Ludwig, Cal does not have a passing game that contains "safe," short throws for its signal callers. Just because we're in the era of the wide receiver screen, and all of its variations, doesn't mean it has to be Cal's offense. There are, by experiential estimate, over 1,232 variations of short passes to running backs; can't we use some of them? Why is it so important to throw downfield and with just predictability all the time?

There's nothing wrong with good, old, precision short passing. It's forgotten in the wake of the advent of the spread formation option systems - and their pass plays - that have spread like a virus around the country. An approach that has infected Cal Football, save for the running quarterback.

A disciplined approach to the passing game, one that Cal actually displayed the ability to uses against Stanford last year, is sorely needed. Cal must stick to this, and stop this need to play macho-passing ball, most of the time.

Or, if the concern is to keep the pass offense simple for students who have a lot of studying to do, given the demands of Cal, why not an approach that has elements of the Run-and-Shoot? (But retains the power running game.)



The point is to have a real, true, system that can be effective with respect to the coverage, is disciplined, and doesn't get the quarterback killed.

Time For Action; Tosh Shows The Way

Some Cal Alumns want California defensive line coach Tosh Lupoi to be Cal's Head Coach, after the fake injury scandal in the Oregon game. Well, not really, but you get the idea.  It's not that cheating is prized by Cal Alumns, just the need for a coach to do something to move Cal Football forward. Remember, we have Coach Lupoi to thank for Wide Receiver Keenan Allen, so no one wants him to leave Cal for any reason.  Well, within reason.

Well, whatever the argument, we'll have an entire year to hash it out.

GO BEARS!

Congress Return Not Lame Duck - Just LAME

The “Do Nothing” Washington crowd makes Congress’ return not “Lame Duck” - just LAME. Voters clearly want lawmakers to ease the nation’s unemployment pain, but a sharply divided Congress is still balking at extending jobless benefits for those out of work a long time.

Unless Congress acts by Tuesday, an estimated 2 million people slated to receive extended benefits will not get them on time, if ever. Congress took this week off for a Thanksgiving recess and will reconvene Monday.

If lawmakers don’t extend the UI filing dates, it will be the third time this year that they will have missed a deadline to do so, even though the nation’s unemployment rate, at 9.6 percent, hasn’t budged since May. Earlier this year, after Congress failed to extend benefits before deadlines, jobless workers received retroactive benefits once legislation was passed.

Not once this entire year has Congress added weeks of benefits to those jobless Americans suffering the most, the 99ers and never have any previous extensions, delayed by Congressional gridlock (in 2008 and 2009) been retroactive for those effected. To be clear: Extending the deadlines set to expire WILL NOT HELP the millions of 99ers in America.

The average family receives about $290 a week from the benefits, which can last up to 99 weeks, depending on a state’s jobless rate. State employer taxes pay for the first 26 weeks. In weeks 27 to 99, a federal program funds most of the benefits; that’s what could be affected if Congress doesn’t act.

What happens when UI benefits are taken away from Americans in desperate need indeed effects everyone. The American economy suffers greatly when millions cannot spend for even the basic necessities. More jobs are lost and more Government spending is required for programs such as Welfare or Food Stamps.

Washington is not effected in any meaningful way, as they are all far too wealthy to understand the pain of poverty or the hopelessness and despair of being hungry or homeless.

In South Korea yesterday, hundreds of people demonstrated at Yongsan, the huge U.S. military base in Seoul, with smaller actions taking place in Kwangju and other cities on Nov 23-24. On Nov 25, student radicals threw petrol bombs at Camp Gray, a U.S. military support base in Seoul.

The demonstrators, set off fire extinguishers and waved sticks as they called on the government to take action after four people were killed as a result of North Korea shelling of Yeonpyeong island.
Just 4 people died as a result of North Korea's barbarous provocation and those in South Korea took to the streets in protest. Well done. Why is it that after countless 99er suicides as a direct result of Congress’ failure to act on any additional UI benefits for more than 1 year now, no Americans are willing to protest in mass? Have Americans really become that uncaring about the suffering of their own citizens?

Why not? Hollywood seems equally unconcerned as Washington about millions of hungry, hurting 99er families across the nation. Where are the celebrities outraged over Governmental neglect of the unemployed without jobs or UI benefits for going on 9 months now?

Celebrities like Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher who spend their time and untold dollars to draw the attention of millions on social networking sites (like twitter) to causes that help victims of human trafficking - usually overseas. Why won’t they use their celebrity to help those hurting in their own country?

Within the past year Demi Moore was credited with possibly saving the lives of 2 suicidal twitter fans when their tweets appeared to cryptically indicate hints of “self destructive” text. When just days ago - when one more 99er could not face Thanksgiving with eviction imminent and hope evaporated - made public his suicide note - was basically ignored by authorities. (Read note here)

Although dozens of concerned 99ers, leaders in the movement, traced this poster and reported it to police and FBI - NOTHING was done and the response from authorities was: ‘There is nothing we can do’ or ‘It’s not our jurisdiction” - I’ll bet Demi Moore did not get that response.

Fact is that nobody seems to care at all what happens to the millions of 99ers, from the President to the media, celebrities or even professional protestors. However the truth is the longer these and other unemployed Americans suffer without money for basic goods and services - the more every employed American should fear the loss of their own jobs, as without sufficient demand, the next pink slip resulting form this slow economy may just be yours.

A fact the very lame “Lame Duck” Congress refuses to address let alone resolve.

[The donation button below is for me, Paladinette. If you like what I write and can afford to do so - please donate to the cause. I thank you!]

Heidi Montag goes after Frank Ryan, after his death

Heidi Montag's Boob Comes Out (Pacific Coast News) 

Heidi Montag, the actress and entertainer most famous for her large boobs, is complaining about those bodatious tatas after the man who gave them to her, Dr. Frank Ryan, is dead.

Dr. Ryan passed on after a horrible car accident back in August 2010. Then, Montag said she was devastated to learn of the news.

Montag used her Twitter page to praise Ryan, saying he was "brilliant."  Now, the 24-year-old star seems to be making the whole experience and his involvement look almost sinister. Basically, Montag says Ryan didn't prep her for the pain she suffered in her "quest for perfection."

In an interview with ABC Primetime that came on Wednesday, Montag said she was in so much pain she thought she "was going to die." Here's the ABC interview:



Montag also said she had the following done: -brow lift
-nose job
-ears pinned
-chin shaved
-two breast enlargements
-back scooped out
-fat injected into her cheekbones
-lipo on her inner and outer thighs

In other words, she had her body remade on a scale that puts the Six Million Dollar Man to shame. And now that she has it, she's not happy, it seems. Perhaps Heidi should find God and a spiritual center to help her.

Stay tuned.

ESPN's Craig James thinks Cam Newton will get Heisman

Just got off Twitter, sharing a few tweets with ESPN Personality Craig James. James was as quick on Twitter (@craigjames32) as he was on ESPN's College Football Show, sharing that he thinks Auburn Quarterback Cam Newton will win the Heisman Trophy, after Newton's stunning rally of his Auburn Tigers from 24 points down to beat Alabama 28 to 27.

You may remember Craig James as the father of Texas Tech Wide Receiver Adam James, and in the role of angry father, so much so that he, the elder James arguably cost Head Coach Mike Leach his job.

But this blogger remembers Mr. James as the fullback for a Southern Methodist University team that was one of the nation's best in the early 80s. That was the time SMU had a certain halfback named Eric Dickerson, and the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) had a certain student named Zennie Abraham.

It was the time of my first car, a 1978 Thunderbird, that I drove from Arlington to Dallas on the weekends to hang at a place called The Greenville Avenue Country Club.   That bar was known for its pool and totally hot SMU women hanging out at it, wearing next to not much.

One Thursday night, I was just five feet away from the beer-swigging running back tandem KRLD's Brad Sham had christened "DickerJames."  No, they were on their best behavior off the field; on it, they ran all over UTA and everyone else..

Fast Forward to tonights tweets, and James thinks Oklahoma will run all over Oklahoma State, and Nebraska will fall to Boise State.

Rachel Berry: Miss Orange after The Oscars and MTV-U

This is for those who wonder "what happened to.." In the case of 2009-2010 Oscars and MTV-U College Correspondent Competition finalist Rachel Berry, she went on to become Miss Orange.

That's right. Rachel Berry went from college broadcast journalist to beauty queen.

When this blogger met her at the press conference for the Oscars / MTV-U College Correspondent Competition on the Saturday before the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, it was obvious she had great legs...

Great dancer's legs.



Yep.  That's Rachel Berry smoking up the floor last October for the Miss California 2010 Competition, where she placed as a finalist.   As for doing another "go" at the MTV-U Oscar Competition, can one do it again if they've done it the year before?

Stay tuned.

In closing, here's a cool video featuring Rachel's Oscars Red Carpet appearance:

Oscars and MTVU Correspondent Contest: 12 Days to deadline

This Oscars news update is on the Academy Awards / MTV-U Third Annual "Oscars®
Correspondent Contest" for College Journalists. With December 6th approaching, you have just 12 days remaining to get in your video showing your interviewing skills and explaining why you're the best choice to cover the 83rd Annual Academy Awards in 2011.  (Update: Rachel Berry after the 2009-2010 contest.)

This blogger highly recommends that you enter the contest; the end result of being on the Red Carpet for the Oscars will be not just a great learning experience, but a moment in time you will never forget.

Moreover, as a winner, you will be treated like a star, yourself. Last year's participants were the focus of a major press conference on the Saturday before the 2010 82nd Annual Academy Awards. Here's this blogger's video highlight from that event:



Here are the details from the AMPAS press release:

From October 27 through December 6, college students are invited to submit a video at http://oscars.mtvu.com, showcasing their interviewing skills and proving why they deserve to cover the Oscars. All videos submitted must be from teams made up of one reporter and one videographer. The Academy and mtvU will select the top ten videos to be posted online at mtvU.com, where students and other viewers can watch and vote for their favorite journalists from January 10 through January 28.


The three teams whose videos capture the most votes will advance to the final round of online voting from February 7 through February 18. All three teams will be flown to Los Angeles to cover Academy Awards pre-events, including the Animated Feature Symposium, Foreign Language Film Award press event, the Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Symposium and the Governors Ball preview.


The Grand Prize-winning team will be revealed on Saturday, February 26, at an Academy press conference. The reporter and videographer will be awarded a spot on the red carpet for the 83rd Academy Awards arrivals, as well as credentials for access to backstage press rooms. The winning team’s coverage will be aired on MTV News and mtvU. The two finalist teams will receive bleacher seats along the red carpet and admission to an Oscar® viewing party.


Last year, Terry Stackhouse and Zach Cusson from Emerson College captured the Grand Prize and covered the red carpet at the 82nd Academy Awards. Runners-up Rachel Berry and Christian Hartnett of Chapman University and Brandon McCaskill and Kiarra Hart of Florida A&M University earned bleacher seats along the red carpet and admission to an Oscar viewing party.


For a complete list of rules and regulations for the “Oscars Correspondent Contest,” please visit http://oscars.mtvu.com.

Google News Meta Tags Program killing blogs - update

The first two blog posts in this series reported how the Google News Meta Tag program was killing news partnerships and blog listings. But more conversations with bloggers revealed that its killing some blogs as well, many of them Liberal Blogs, and with traffic losses as great as 90 percent in one known case.

The entire affair, said to be "experimental" by Google News staff, is triggering so much consternation in the blogosphere that the end result will be if not one, then several complaints filed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The Google News Meta Tag program was created to establish one "canonical" URL for a thread of news articles and blog posts. In other words, the system asks the authors to favor the post where the news "originated" from. But in implementing the system last week, Google's machines removed a very large number - perhaps over 100 - blogs from Google News, leaving legacy news sites like The New York Post or The Wall Street Journal.

The legal problem is that Google News action results in a surpression of a certain form of speech. That claim is not hyperbole.

First, Google News staff has sent emails pointing to the overall idea of "news quality" as being the reason for the actions taken. But the problem is websites that exhibit obvious use of writing approaches to gain traffic, specifically from Associated Content are allowed to remain on Google News, where small, independent blogs, which have better track records of non-abuse, are taken off Google News.

This happened to Zennie62.com, even though this blogger has taken great steps - even to blocking other Zennie62 bloggers from posting "illegal" blogs - to maintain quality blog posts. (The good news for Zennie62, is that the traffic impact has only been a negative 10 percent to 18 percent per day, from overall page view count data. That's far less than the 50 percent to 90 percent in other blog cases.)

Second, Google News staff's actions have resulted in an uncomfortably large number of Liberal Blogs being removed from Google News, like VF Daily, the blog of Vanity Fair, while Conservative Blogs, like Red State, curiously remain in place on Google News.  The other blogs are "banished" to Google Blog Search level.  Google Blog Search is not shown as a first-click option in Google search results.

In claiming "news quality" as the reason for the blog taken down action, Google News staff is harming free expression and overall diversity of opinions expressed, and flat out telling a lie as well. "News quality" is attacked whenever the person issuing the attack disagrees with the content of the blog that's being questioned. Rare is the case that a person will attack a blog who's content they agree with.

Google's other claim is that the blog post does not "add new information" to the news.  But in that claim Google unknowingly shows its actions to be not legal, for blogs are and have been considered an "echo" chamber, where one idea is commonly repeated by other blogs (this is confirmed in a study called Blogs Are Echo Chambers).  That's the reason the media refers to the "blogosphere's" take, be it the Liberal, Conservative, or Tech blogosphere.  It's not the blog's role to necessarily create new news, but to reflect the overall speech Zeitgeist of the day.

That's why Google News staff is not telling the truth, and if it is, then what it's doing is not legal - Google can't win. That's why the entire Google News action is subject to legal review. It is unconstitutional purely because of the overall size of Google.   But with that, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing will have to fall in line with what happens to Google in the wake of this skirmish.

Google's market share for search, estimated at 63 percent as of this writing, is such that Google News becomes the online "controller" of what is news for everyone because Google News results are prominently displayed on the front page of a search result.

What must happen is that the FCC and perhaps ultimately The Supreme Court, will have to step in and set a standard for the presentation of online news that does not harm free speech and represents the FCC's calls for diversity and openness online.   Right now, Google's actions are destroying those objectives in practice.

What should Google do to right this wrong?  It goes beyond just reinstating the blogs removed from Google News.  This solution offered will open Google News to blogs and citizen journalists and give a much-needed and understood roadmap for the blogger to follow:

1) The Google News results should include a list of the latest keyword-relevant blog posts from Google Blog Search, and the top blog posts from that should be on the front of the search page.  Of course, because of the constant addition and indexing of blog posts, the results will change frequently, much like those for Twitter on Google, but that's better than what exists today.  

2) A clear set of instructions on how to redesign a blog for inclusion into Google News, must be posted and accessible via link from the results for Google News searches.   Also, all blogspot.com blogs, owned by Google, should have a Newssite map code that can be installed.  Currently, Google subordinates its own blogspot blogs, and does not tell users of Blogger how to upgrade their blog templates for better results in search or inclusion to Google News.  

3) Google News staff must give takedown warnings one month before such actions are done, and explain what the problem is to the webmaster.  That would eliminate the current appearance of favoritism and give the webmaster a chance to correct a problem, if it does exist.   

Google News 'Massacre' Affects Small Business Bloggers

As Zennie pointed out earlier in his post, "Google News Meta Tags Program Killing Blog Listings" Google News has done a lot to "clean out" their database of small publishers. Basically, the decision was made without warning, without explanation, and without any input from Google Staff to publishers.

There are a couple of things at play, here and many unanswered questions. First, many blog owners have been sent out generic emails which state that their blogs don't meet "quality guidelines."

Really? What are the quality guidelines? I'd link to a list of them...but guess what? There are none! A review of some of the publishers who have reported their blogs to be de-listed leaves one scratching their head. Why are publishers who have been listed for several years, who give credit to their sources via links, and who engage readers in meaningful conversations de-listed while some content mills get to stay listed?

Scott Rosenberg at Salon.com called out one Associated Content writer for his overuse of the popular search key "Dr. Laura n-word" back in August. A cursory glance at the link to the piece
leads you to the
author's page... and guess what? The same author is still using practices, which Rosenberg describes as "vein, cobbled together with no care beyond an effortful -- and, I guess, successful -- determination to catch Google's eye by repeating the phrase...as many times as possible."

A quick look at Google's small amount of guidelines that are available in the Webmaster tools claims that you are supposed to make your content "primarily for users, not search engines" and that a Webmaster should ask him/herself before posting anything "does this help my users, would I do this if search engines didn't exist?" It's important to note that these are quality guidelines in general - not just for Google News. There are no such guidelines, to this blogger's knowledge, of any special quality guidelines for Google News alone.

The whole "content farm" and small publisher backlash has been a long time coming. Last year, Belinda Luscombe at Time Magazine wrote an article titled "Why Does Google Search Love Examiner.com?" The article goes on to say that articles on the site are a compendium of tidbits culled from other websites, neither advancing the story nor bringing any insight (a description, it should be noted, that can be just as fairly applied to many offerings of more mainstream media). Most Examiners are not journalists, and their prose is not edited."

This all goes against the premise of Google News which is "original" content - which you will find on sites like Zennie62.com and also ours and several other recently banned publishers.

There are a couple of questions that I, along with thousands of other small business bloggers, want answered. 1) What determined who got erased from the Google News database 2) Why isn't everyone treated the same? Why are there still small publishers in News? And most importantly...why aren't Google employees responding to the many publisher pleas in their "help" forum?

The Effects of Google's Blog 'Massacre' On Me

How has this affected this small business blogger? Our traffic has declined about 90%, and our ad revenue about the same. Therefore, it's not only our small business that has been affected - it's also the small business ad networks that we used in addition to Google Adsense. In addition, we had to tell our writers to 'hold off' on hyper posting until we can either get re-listed with Google News or figure out how to build our traffic up to a base where we can afford to pay writers.

We, too, contacted Google News explaining that we had installed a plugin to solve the "meta tag" compliance issues Zennie has discussed earlier. We explained that we hired an editor (who we will try to retain, but may not be able to), and outlined all we have done to "comply" with the implied quality guidelines.

The response we got was the same response Zennie got which read:We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our

Upon reviewing your site, we found that we can no longer include it in Google News at this time. We have certain guidelines in place regarding the quality of sites which are included in the Google News index

If your site is in violation of these guidelines, it will not be added to Google News. Please feel free to review these guidelines at the following link:]Please note that you'll still be able to find your site in Google Web Search and other Google services.

Thanks for your interest in Google News.

The Google News Team

Back to the drawing board.

This isn't right. There are too many weird factors at play. Is Google trying to suppress the voice of the independent blogger? Is Google giving in to "big media", paving the way to the day where we will have to pay publications for their online information?

All I know is that the actions are blatantly un-American, infringe on our rights, and borderline on violating first Amendment rights....but Why? Who's behind this recent action by Google? The same action which has added quite possibly 10-20 more people to the ranks of the unemployed - just on my publication (which has no relation to Zennie62.com) alone? Why was this move made over the holiday, and why won't Google reply to any inquiries from frantic publishers willing to bend over backwards and do whatever is necessary to keep Google happy?

Cyber Monday deals? How about free?

Today, Friday, is "Black Friday," but we're already talking about "Cyber Monday." America's into the period, the holidays, where consumption of goods, far more than services, is pushed.

At a time when unemployment rates are still high, and the unemployed are, in some cases, waiting to determine if Congress is going to extend the Unemployment Benefits they get, how about one day that's free? Why not have the Cyber Monday deals be for free?

While scary at first, a series of free Cyber Monday deals would help businesses clear out inventories, while allowing people to get what they need even while they don't have money coming in. To make it better, the firm's offering such deep discounts would be able to write them off.

That's right. Offering free deals is a form of charity, as this logic goes, so why not allow the businesses doing so to write off the cost of each item? It's a kind of tax credit for doing good.

Who could benefit from this? Large retailers with strong online sales programs, for one and enough reserves to be able to offer the program, then enjoy the tax benefits the next year.

Cyber Monday doesn't have to be a "let's see if we can make them part with their money" time in our lives. With so many people in need of a helping hand, this idea is just the solution for them, and helps the companies who chose to help them, too.

Happy Thanksgiving thoughts, happy to be alive

This Thanksgiving blog post is backwards; its supposed to be done in the morning. But now, with my belly full of food and drink it just seemed like a good idea to jot a few thoughts down in brief.

I'm thankful to be alive. Especially since two of my fathers and a number of my friends have died and passed on to Heaven. I think of people like Michael McQuire, who died at 48 of heart failure, and Pernell Harris who died at 40 of what appeared to be an aneurysm.  Then my father Zenophon Abraham, Sr, who passed away from Prostate Cancer, as did my stepfather Chester Yerger, Jr. and both in 2005.  And from Skyline High School, Ann Lucas passed at just 47 from cancer.  

And when people I knew passed in their 20s it was generally from a car accident, which was the case for the great Sam Peters, who was my friend at Cal Berkeley.   I think of all the people who have passed on and wonder what I'm doing here and what this is about.  That's why I turn to God.

Then, I think of all of my blessings.  Like my current good health and appearance.  I think of my Mom and how I'm blessed to have her here.  And I think of how happy I am to have been able to craft a living from my talent, and not be trapped in doing something just to make money.  

I'm blessed to have met a number of amazing people, from professors, to actors and actresses and movie producers and NFL team owners, and NFL commissioners.  The list goes on.  

I'm happy for the people I know and the few really good friends I have.  I do wish some people I knew were more genuine.  That is disappointing.

But overall, I've got a lot to be thankful for.  Overall, my Mom's here and she's my only direct family remaining.  

I'm also thankful for Roosters in Oakland.