Snap Back to Reality

Alright... sorry about the long absence from the blog, guys.  I've had my head in code for about the last two weeks.  In defense of my lateness this week, I calculated that I've logged over 100 hours in the last five days getting the last bits of BlipMedia put together.  As a result, by end of business tomorrow (today, I suppose.  If I really wanted to end the ambiguity, I'd say Friday, May 20th).

Better late than never, I always say.

First of all, I want to apologise to all of my friends, family, users, podcast and radioshow listeners, as well as acquaintences that I've blown off this month.  I've blown off a lot of you for this project, but this is one of my big things, and if you know me at all, you know when I really believe in something, I put everything I have into it until I'm done. As a result, we at BlipMedia have something we're proud to launch with (I think :-). If you click on the Blip link over there on the side and check it out, I'd be mighty grateful.

So I'm writing this article to say that my official hiding from the public will be over by Friday next week. I've still a few bugs to work out of the system so we can put online a few extra features I was looking to include in the initial launch, but will soon follow.

Why BlipMedia, though? Well, this company is launched with two real goals in mind.  One of these goals has my idealism about New Media smeared all over it, and the other reflects the business interests of some of the more level headed partners. Firstly, we’re here to become a community for the independent media, a well produced showcase for the best the bloggers and the podcasters have to offer. We’re here to provide tools that make disseminating their information more easily. We’re here to topple the Old Media. Secondly, we’re here to put a viable business model in place to support it (and along with that, make a couple dollars in the process).

The Media Side
I’m sure you’re all aware of the Newsweek thing. Editor of Newsweek Mark Whitaker expressed what’s being called “regret” over an item which appeared in it’s “Periscope” section, saying it was based on a confidential source. They are now unsure of the story’s truthfulness, according to Whitaker. The article’s misquote triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and many other countries, ultimately resulting in at least 15 deaths.

I don’t have to say much regarding this, as other bloggers have understandably pounced on this story.  Fox news, of course, was first to associate this with the New Media/Old Media debate last night on Bill O’Reilly’s show, I believe, because Fox thinks itself New Media.  Truth is, Fox itself is Old Media as the rest of them.  Old Media is built upon the assumption that News, Entertainment, and Information content is simply the hook to bring the product to the table (with the product being the viewership).  This ensures that integrity of information is not the first priority, the enticement factor is. If you approach the News Corporation as an advertiser, they will be honest and tell you that Fox News Channel is not a news channel, but an entertainment channel.  That is the secret to their success, not “Fair and Balanced.”

The New York Times’ Jayson Blair, The New York Times’ Paul McGeough, The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson,  Harpers’ Magazine, The New Republic’s Stephen Glass, CBS’s Dan Rather and Marla Mapes, The Boston Globe, ABC’s Mark Halperin, The LA Time’s Roberr Scheer, The Detroit Free Press’s Mitch Albom, and several others all show that the Old Media is busting at the seams with inaccuracies and blatant lies.  The New Media keeps pegging the inaccuracies and exposing them, showing all the inherent flaws in their system. As Darrell briefly outlined in his article this week, the New Media is by it’s very nature immune to these kinds of inaccuracies due to it’s a participatory medium, not a one way communication (which is by it’s very definition an oxymoron).

The Business Side
What makes us different? To make a media organisation profitable, you must make trades on your integrity. You can either sell them to the highest bidder, you can sell them to the consumer of the news, or you can subsidize the effort either through volunteer work or actual capital. I’ve just explained the pitfalls of selling them to the highest bidder, and selling content to the info-consumer is a business model that has failed for years on the internet. The only lasting New Media news organisations on the internet seem to be grassroots in nature (RantRadio, Indymedia, GNN, etc).

When I took a look at what it would take to create a news organisation with these principals in mind, and with the added requirement of staying power, I was reminded of a quote who’s source escapes me currently, but went something like “corporations are mankinds attempt at immortality.” This is true, in a way.  Corporations, in a legal sense, have almost all the rights as a normal human, but without that pesky lifespan issue.  Theoretically, a well engineered corporation can outlive several generations of human beings (many, in fact, do.  AT&T, and all the Baby Bells and Bell spinoffs have long outlasted Alexander Graham Bell’s lifespan, much less his generation). Therefore by this line of thinking, a well engineered, principled media company could outlast all of it’s contemporaries and predecessors.  It was with this line of thinking I came up with the subsization route.

Over the next few weeks, I will be laying out the goods, services, and profit models for BlipMedia, as well as pitching a few products at you, dear readers, to see if I can’t convince you my line of thinking is correct.  In the mean time, explore the new BlipMedia pages, let’s build this media revolution together.

/rizzn

A Very Corporate Moment..

..brought to you by the company I work for, AACS.

To all of our clients and affiliates, 

First off, we would like to apologise if you've recieved multiple copies of this letter, as we've sent it out uniformly to three seperate databases of contacts, and several of you are in multiple databases.  If you've already recieved a copy of this letter, please disregard this one.  

We as a company have listened to your concerns, and based on those concerns we are now in midst of some improvements at AACS. All of the changes will enable us to deliver a better service and product to you and help prevent errors or delays on servicing you, our clients. 

We will list the changes as follows; 

• Our address, phone numbers, website, fax numbers will NOT change.
• As part of a new management team structure, Jason Friedman will no longer be part of AACS or any business that will be affiliated with us in any shape form or fashion.
• Soon we will be offering free (to existing clients via our websites) educational materials and products that will help you control your credit lives and help prevent losing control again.

This will not affect your file. We will continue to work your file. In fact we will now be equiped to work your file more efficiently. Based on your comments, we believe that most of you will be in agreement with these changes. We hope this explains the changes and of course we will accept your calls to answer any concerns, comments or questions you may have; please call or write us at:

Tel: 954-786-8586
Tel: 866-900-9552
Fax: 954-977-9388
info@aacsnet.com
www.aacsnet.com
717 E. Atlantic Blvd.
Pompano Beach, FL. 33060 

As always we will continue to protect your information and files, that are still in our offices located at 717 E. Atlantic Blvd. Pompano Beach, FL. 33060  We own the database, the computers, the support systems, the process, the printers and even the desks that we have used (and will continue to use) while we process your files.

 

Additionally you may or may not have received an email from Mr. Friedman requesting you contact him directly, at his home, where he is offering his services under a new company named “Friedman & Friedman Assoc.” Of course, you should make that choice based on your own best interest. You may do as you please; the choice is clearly yours.

If you choose to use Mr. Friedman, we must inform you of the following;

• We will conceder that as if you’re closing of your file with us.
• We will no longer be responsible for your file.
• Jason Freidman is NOT an attorney.
   

Clearly, it should be said; that if you’re a current client with us, we will work your file as agreed. No one outside of our company has access to your files under any circumstances. If you’re told as much, please contact us and we will address that misrepresentation directly. Once again please contact us if you have any questions.

/rizzn

 

Things that are Happening to Me

A lot of good thing happenned today.

a) Our VoIP system went out of Beta and into production.
b) I made some real good headway in dealing with my license issue with the TX DPS.
c) Our street team was given marching orders, and snapped into action.
d) We cleared up the BellSouth issue with the office lines.
e) r.Podcaster was finally fixed by the admin.

That’s pretty much it – but it was hard fought.

/rizzn

DMV

I spent most of the day at the DMV.As a result, I'm not in a good mood.

r.Podcaster News

In other news: r.Podcaster hardware updates are finished and things should be back to normal. We were experiencing some growth pangs over the last couple weeks, and we still need to install a new hard-drive, but as of this moment, things are back to normal.  Apologies for the delayed updates.

/rizzn

A Very Presidential Discussion

I recieved the following letter from my good buddy Matthew Finkelstein earlier today (read past the letter for my comments):

From: Matthew Finkelstein [mailto:raktherega@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 11:56 AM
To: Joshua Ballard; Maria Barcelo; Beverly Berlin; debra gail Berlin; Aaron cummings; Joel Finkelstein; julius Finkelstein; Lawrence Eliezer Finkelstein; Michael Adam Finkelstein; mark hopkins; Lucas Johnson; pete lederberg; krystin lewis; Alex Matczuk; Sarah Morris; Fred Pekar; M Van Pelt; Ryan Peveto; abigail Zoline
Subject: weird, very weird Look what happens when a President gets elected in a year with a "0" at the end.

1840: William Henry Harrison (died in office)
1860: Abraham Lincoln (assassinated)
1880: James A. Garfield (assassinated)
1900: William McKinley (assassinated)
1920: Warren G. Harding (died in office)
1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (died in office)
1960: John F. Kennedy (assassinated)
1980: Ronald Reagan (survived assassination attempt)
2000: George W. Bush ????????????

And to think that we had two guys fighting it out in the courts to be the one elected in 2000.

You might also be interested in this.
Have a history teacher explain this if they can.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846
. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908

. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named "Ford."
Kennedy was shot in a car called "Lincoln" made by "Ford."
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

---

I had this to say in response:

Most of those facts come from a handout you can get in Dallas at the Grassy Knoll.

Interesting facts about the presidents who were assassinated that are little known

Roughly half of American presidents have been Freemasons according to official Masonic public record. Of the other half, anti-Masons and Mason enthusiasts have been able to either tie the rest of the US Presidents to strong Masonic ties or hidden Masonic membership. In fact, there are two US Presidents with no known Masonic ties whatsoever: JFK and Abraham Lincoln. Casual research will show that Lincoln spoke kindly of the Masons, but clearly stated that he was not a member of the order. John F. Kennedy clearly did not qualify to become a Mason, as he was Catholic, yet he did have a number of Masonic cabinet members.

Obviously there is a story behind that as to what theorists believe the connection between the two presidents and the Masonic influences are, but I won’t go into that at the present. For anyone to draw even more comparisons between Lincoln and Kennedy is just excessive given all the other odd coincidences between the two that have been quite thoroughly documented. The question is: what of our other two assassinations? What of James A. Garfield? What of William McKinley?

Accounts differ on the relative involvement of McKinley and Garfield as to their involvement in the Masons – some Masonic historians claim that McKinley was a pillar or New York freemasonry while others say he only achieved the third rank (a fairly low rank, relatively). Garfield, on the other hand is fairly straightforward to interpret historically regarding his Masonic connections: according to anti-Mason and Masonic historians alike, Garfield only ever achieved the third rank as a Mason. Furthermore, historical records indicate that due to his involvement in changing the bank laws, he significantly threatened the power structure and monetary of the Jesuits and Masons alike.

The problem in researching these matters comes down to the dogma of the historian – when researching conspiracy history, your sources are very clouded by, shall we say, unconventionial opinion and nuggets of information that don’t always translate to qualified facts.

Regardless of this, however, it is easy to come up with a list of suspects that would have motive and ability to kill these Presidents, and the Jesuits and the Masons are high on this list.

I by no means am an expert on Masonry or conspiracy theory, although I am in touch with it more than the average bear. The most common thing I hear when I start talking about Masonry and other secret societies and their involvement is that “my grandfather/uncle/father/brother is a Mason.” It’s important to note that most people at the lower levels of the society have no inkling about what the upper echelons are about, but even a lower level member can examine the verbage of their oaths and general Masonic literature and see that there are insidious looking loopholes.

The same can be said of the Jesuits. The following excerpt comes from the US Congressional Record, House Bill 1523, and it is a piece of the Jesuit oath that one would take upon initiation to the order:

"I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus."

As to my observations, throughout history it was the US Presidents that posed the greatest threat to the security of the organizations of the Masons and other large secret societies that seem to draw the ultimate punishment for their actions, if indeed one believes that these organizations are responsible for their demise. Many say that it is impossible for a real conspiracy to be pulled off on that grand a scale, but the US Government (and nearly every other government in the world, for that matter) employs a number of agencies for that express purpose – pulling off conspiracies, it’s just that when they’re owned by a government, we call them intelligence bureaus. In any case, it conclusively proves by the very inconclusive nature of the facts at hand that we live in an incredibly complex world.

Just some food for thought -- as you were!

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