The reason I am sad with the way our country is going is because of the obvious lack of self motivation. The liberal mindset is “Just raise my taxes and pay for it to be done”,  which isn’t a slam against liberals, its simple fact. Normally, I would say “that’s ridicules because we as citizens can band together and just make the change our self’s”. The problem is, that we are NOT doing it on a massive level… and since we are NOT doing it on a massive level the prices are high, because there is not enough demand to bring down the prices. So we HAVE to rely on our government to push for a less foreign oil dependant United States. 

It once again falls down to the new war between Neo-Conservatives and Neo-Liberals, which is simply this:
A Conservative says the sky is blue, and the liberals will say its green.

Liberals will say they LOVE cheese so all the Conservatives will begin to HATE cheese.

Its silly, sad, and pathetic. The normal people of this country know this, and are jaded by it. They know things wont change in our government, so it falls back to the people who keep making the same decissions over and over again. I would be thrilled to see a bill passed that would make every current senator is replaced. I know we have some good ones… but it would weed out enough of the bad ones that it would be worth it.

Its not just that but it seems like the inmates are running the insane asylum. Since when do Conservatives listen to Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter for anything other than cheap entertainment? How about the liberal professors who seem to be coming out of the wood-works not just preaching helpful suggestions for our future, but blatant hate. We seem to be dividing rather than coming together, independents really have no where to go, because it seems you have a bunch of loonys on both sides… Its not a choice of who is best for the job, its who will be the less of two evils.

Accurate facts are hard to come by, and statistics and facts are no longer relevant, because both sides have the same amount of facts backing up their mindset there is no possible way to know, they balance themselves out. And its hard to go further if you only say why the other guy is dumb.

In the spirit of coming up with suggestions for good rather than just complaining here is what I am offering up to make things better. Lets get a group of senators, republican and liberal, and have some other heads of other political parties so they can give their input… and we will just have a nice long meeting until we can find out what we can all agree on, some give and take (Conservatives can build their wall, but we want to build a nuclear plant instead of drilling off shore… or even a simple meet in the middle… new ideas would always be better).

People are quickly losing faith in their government (which is why they are becoming further left and right, towards anarchy and communism), we need some MAJOR change soon, not just cheap allusions and bickering.

I think that I am going to throw my hat into the next political race that I can here in Idaho. I will find a position, research it and join it. I really would love to be a representive for my county: that, however, is shooting very high. I am looking up the age requirements and looking up what it would take to become a state rep though and will at least garner some votes so I can feel accomplished and maybe make some people think more about government.

I have platforms, and I would bring a “paleocon” presence to a society who needs it, and who could accept it as well (why bother trying to speak when you wont be heard -looking at you berkley- ). I think this can be a very fun and educational experiance. The worst that can happen is that I lose, the best that can happen, for everyone, is that I win. There will be some money involved but I have some of that.  There are lots of things that I can do to help the development of Idaho, and one would be brining a great youth culture to the forefront.

Do I know what position I want? No, not yet.

Do I have any experiance in legislation? Kinda, I was in Student Congress in High School Debate, however, I only went to finals once.

Do I have a fancy law degree from Gonzaga or Harvard? Nope.

But since when was any of that needed? Since when did you need a law degree to know what was right and wrong? I can make my suggestions for the betterment of our state just as good as any law educated man can. I know how to read legal text, I understand what it means, they are not going to slip something past me and trick me. Being in politics isn’t about a law degree or a huge fancy education: Its about making a difference. Its about inspiring others. Its about going out there, putting your self out on the line, and standing up when others wont.

Thats why I will be running and hopefully I will find a position to run for that you can be 18 years old and win. I know I can get those votes… I know people agree with me. Idahoens just are losing sight of the good old paleoconservitive foundation that we were all built on. Thats what I am brining back… Not only that but fresh new youth to government. If I win, that will encourage another guy my age to run, and maybe we can finally get rid of all the old guys who keep making the same decissions… and their sons who are basically clones of their dads… and get into office and make that change.

Yeah I am a Paleoconservitive for Change, change for the better.

We will see how it turns out.

What I liked
I really got hooked on pownce, that was a very fun service and it has all the same features of twitter and then some. I will not drop twitter, I am just going to find a good reason to use pownce. I was thinking of it being a URL tracker + File Dump type site so you guys can keep track of the sites and files on the internet I found useful.

GoodReads also seemed like a very novel website (oh how I love puns). This website is about giving reviews on your book collection and talk about the books you are reading, you own, you have out, etc. I will be posting all my book reviews on there shortly and adding the feature to my sidebar since I do read a lot and would really like to have a way to talk about not only the media and such I find on the internet, but some of my things I do offline as well.

I also like NewsVine (by Mike at MikeIndustries), I have actually been a member for quite some time now but never actaully did anything so I will probably start being more involved and helping out in that community. I have to see if these sites are unblocked at work or not though, if they are unblocked I can use them much more.

Web Sites I Didn’t Like/Need
There were many sites that I took a look at that I knew I didn’t need. Too many to list actually but here is a list of some of them that I thought were useless to me so I dropped them.

hi5 (and all the other ‘new age’ social networking community personal profile etc type sites) , I have a myspace,  I have a facebook I don’t need any more. Its that simple .The idea has already been done, and done well. There are no sites that are going to be able to replace myspace or facebook for me. Heck, I don’t even use THOSE services much.

43Things was another site that I found useless to my needs, as an ever thinking entrepreuner if you saw my 43 things, you would see how often I change my goals and what I want… its more like a daily occurance for me. I want this, nah, I want this –> Wait, maybe I should pay my bills.  I would only have 3 things that I will keep wanting, and typically the ones that stay constant I don’t want to share anyway.

Don’t Forget the Milk (and like sites), I send myself emails, and I have twitter, and I have a mom who texts me and calls  me. So DFtM doesn’t help me at all. I think its a very neat concept and I like it a lot, there just isn’t anything in it for me. I keep you updated on my life through twitter, and personally I am already organized I just tell you guys what I am doing to keep YOU updated, its not for my personal gain.

So there you have it, the new sites I am on, and the sites I am not going to get on/have left.

As always you can add me on any networking site with the name of teamcoltra      

Tags: SocialNetworking, Blogging, Need, Don’t Need, updates, 43Things, Don’t Forget The Milk, hi5, myspace, facebook, GoodReads, NewsVine, Pownce

I have made countless speeches at different youth group events, and at political club meetings, and the differences in how my audience responds is completely different. While speaking at a youth group, and endorsing Mike Huckabee, many of the kids and teens were turned off to him (this is at a church mind you, he should be a popular guy there), because he “was a republican”. I thought this was silly, it shouldn’t matter if you are a republican, or a democrat; a liberal, or a conservative. Every candidate loves the country and if they hold the same values you hold you should support that. After pulling a few randomly selected kids aside while they were doing their activities I had asked them a few questions to get a feel for their political compass (as I highly doubted these were all hard left liberals). I always carry with me to these events where the candidates stood on issues, and some of the speeches they make, and after talking to them I read off a few of the quotes one of the candidates made without telling them who it was, and asked them: Is this a person you support? Many times they had selected someone OTHER THAN who they said they supported in the beginning.

After talking to each student about who they had chose as their candidate they supported, I asked them if they had heard of this candidate before, and why they support everything (or much of) what this candidate supports but cheer for another candidate. When this was confronted to them, they typically fell back to the truthful answer which was:

“Well such and such band was endorsing them, and I really like them”

or

“My friends all said the other guy sucked”

even

“I can’t support this guy because he is a Muslim”

There are so many responses that I get at this point that I can’t list them all but those were the major ones. I didn’t care who they picked my goal isn’t to tell them to vote for a certain candidate, many can’t vote anyway… I simply wanted them to get them selfs involved in politics.

When you go to club meetings the atmosphere is entirely different; we are having lunch or breakfast and there is a bunch of (typically) old people in a room wearing pins and buttons of whoever or for whatever, and these people typically know what they support and why they support it. So telling them viewpoints that are not that of something they are used to hearing usually gets them up in arms (telling the republicans that I don’t support book banning was one such instance). However, they do agree with me that young people must be more involved.

This is issue is not only important to the republicans who seem to typically have an issue getting teens and young adults interested in what they are doing, but to the democrats who typically do their recruiting by “brainwash” and “bells and whistles” which is a good strategy in the beginning but its also why they lose many democrats after they grow up a bit.  Both sides need to care less about what party young people join, and who they support and get up and say “Hey, how are you… lets find out if you are a republican or a democrat or somewhere in between and help you find your own way in politics” and not pressure them one way or another.

Disclaimer: In this article I expect that the bloggers are using wordpress, you can blog on other platforms however, they will not have some of the functionality listed below.

Hello Joe Blogger, I am Travis McCrea and I will be walking you through, step by step how to keep up a blog that will have many readers and might even make you e-famous. This will not be a simple quick process or something you download and presto change-o you have more readers… This whole process will probably take months.

Lets start with a theme: Now many people will disagree with me and say content over presentation, however, they are wrong. A good theme makes a good website, and makes people feel comfortable at your site, which in turn will bring them back… If you can create your own custom theme that is perfect, but if you need to download one, that is good too… take a look at the “top 50 sexiest wordpress themes” and other top wp-theme lists, they make good reference points.

Write up a short biography: If you let your readers know who you are, they will feel more connected to you on a personal level and give your view points more strength. If you are posting about how churches are the best thing in the world… people are going to think that you are a religious nut. If you talk about how you are atheist in your biography, and still support that churches are the greatest thing in the world… Your argument will have more standing, and if someone calls you on being an nut, you can simply point them to your biography. I like to include a picture of myself, and some of my home life information… remember though this is all on the internet, forever, so if you don’t feel comfortable with people knowing something its best to leave it out.

Now that you have the basics down, lets move on to some actual writing:

Write some good length posts: (typically a page to two pages in printed length) these will provide some extra background when new visitors come to your blog, they will look back and see your viewpoints on issues. You can promote these a bit, but remember: We are only trying to build a foundation.

NOW get some readers: the reason behind doing this now rather than before is that you want your readers to have… something to read. As I said it also builds a foundation and gives references to your stand points on the issues that are important to the reader.  Don’t worry if you upset people, your writing a political blog, its going to happen.

Tip: Crossposting your blog will do wonders, if you have lots of myspace friends then I suggest you post your blog on your myspace blog as well… post it as many places as you can, and remind people on twitter, and everywhere else that you have a blog and you made a post, this will increase your reader count by a lot.

Add “Digg This” and other “Social Networking/Bookmarking” Buttons: If you add these to your blog, then you motivate people to “Digg” the stories they like and hopefully expose your blog to people on other websites who may not have otherwise heard of you. If you have enough friends reading your blog, your digg count will skyrocket and might get you to the front page of the “Political Comments” section of Digg. After you get a front page story, it gets viewed even more because more people see it (snowball effect).

Build On This Momentum: You have them! Now keep them. They filled out their web address, and now you need to go look at their blog, and read what they wrote, and leave a comment. Add this person to your favorite feed burner and when they make new posts comment on it… they will return the favor, and you will get exposure to all the people on their blog… and you have done it. You are now a part of the blog-o-sphere.

Now with great power comes great responsibility, and for the main part that is staying active. Want to lose all the people you worked so hard to gain? Go a month or two without updating your blog. Another responsibility you have as a blogger, is maintaining your morals no matter how popular you become. Don’t lie, cheat, steal, swindle, or otherwise do wrong in order to advance your own personal beliefs.

Hey and congratulations, you have just joined many others and will soon become e-famous… just wait.. and see.

a: according with the letter of the scriptures b: adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression : actual <liberty in the literal sense is impossible — B. N. Cardozo> c: free from exaggeration or embellishment <the literal truth> d: characterized by a concern mainly with facts <a very literal man>

Thats by my buddies Merriam and Webster.

I cannot just sit here and tell you that people use it and trust you believe me so here we go:

As a matter of fact I received the highest award from literally every veteran’s organization in America.

John McCain

Every single one John? There is not any single veteran organization that dislikes you, or did NOT give you their highest award? Or did you receive it from nearly ever major veteran organization?

“This is all beyond my wildest dreams. From the moment that I got the call telling me I got the part to the day that I walked on to the set with Beyoncé, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, up until this point, I could never have imagined how huge it would become. I literally pinch myself every day.”

Jennifer Hudson

There has to be some marks by now… Seriously… every single day you pinch yourself… literally? Maybe you metaphorically pinch yourself every day?

“They are literally willing to do anything” to win the nomination, he said.

David Axelrod

Interesting… This just isn’t true… We know that there are many things that Hillary Clinton will not do to win the nomination. She will not do anything directly that would be illegal (for instance she will not kill Obama). There are plenty of things she cannot and will not do to win. This would be better said “They are almost willing to do anything” .

Literally every time we go to the pump we are directly funding terrorists who are funded by oilish Islamic states who usually wish to carve us up or otherwise do us harm.

Michael Conniff of the Huffington Post

I am not going to argue the fact that we INDIRECTLY fund terrorism when we fill up, our credit cards are not directly transfered to terrorist organizations. I am not walking into 7-11 and handing a terrorist my money (although there are a few of them who might be). The word “literally” isn’t really misused until you put the other parts that are not accurate with it.

So if you are writing a blog, or you are going to be doing any form of speaking, remember that your words matter and if you really want to be taken seriously use the right words.

I have been playing the wonderful game of 2moons for a while and I think this game highlights my displeasure in static economies. There are 6 different classes, and for the most part, once you take a class you have a limited amount of items that is for your class and there really isn’t many “generic” items. Inside your items there is a leveling system, to explain, it basically works like this: 2moons doesn’t display other character’s level… but you only have 1 choice of armor to upgrade into so you can vaguely tell what level a character is by what they are wearing. However, there is no choice in what you can buy, for instance you cannot buy armor with strong magic defense, or even different armors that just look different, so in the market place, there is little room to buy and sell items, although there are weapons with powerups you cannot buy in stores… Its not as simple as going to a grand exchange like in runescape or even a place where you can go to buy and sell items.

Here is how the current economic system works: You can buy your armor, or you can kill bad guys out in the woods and hope they drop something good that you might be able to sell. However, it will take a long time to find someone in that level range, that needs THAT item, that is part of THAT class. You can keep killing bad guys to make money to purchase more items from the store, but it is all bland, and you cannot really shop around for a better deal because the store undercuts what normal people will sell it at… since it is so hard to find a buyer.

Here is what I think every MMO economy needs:

1. Choices - If you have generic stock in the stores, then also have other types of armor and weapons that you can only find in the wild.
2. Ability to Create - If you can go out and find wood/metal etc… then you could also then create your own armor and weapons and sell them at a low cost.
3. A Market Area - A place where members can go to buy/sell/trade items. This place is not moderated or anything else, so buyers beware.

I just cannot feel too involved when I feel like I am leading the same life as every other single guy in the game. 2moons judges your success over your ability to kill other people/monsters, but maybe I want to judge my success by having millions and millions of dollars. The reason you play an MMO instead of an FPS is because you want non-linear game play. The economy makes the game, and in every game I ever make, web-based or otherwise, I always allow my users to make/break the economy. Choices are everything.

Lets look at what we pay in gas compared to other countries:
(Price is in $USD/Gallon)
Australia $5.60  
Turkey $10.14
Italy $8.78
France $8.06
Hong Kong $7.56
Canada $5.19

Really the only two major countries who pay LESS than us, is China and Russia (interesting):
China $2.80
Russia (Moscow) $3.79
(s)

I don’t think we are doing too badly with our $3.93 a gallon, sure we are now going to have to cut our lifestyles back a bit, but our “go crazy with all this money” phase has been going on for a long time, while the rest of the world is suffering. I find it insulting to the people who are suffering daily due to lack of protection and money these people are dying because they have nothing. These are just a few random articles that I haven’t even really had a chance to look at but they all say the same thing: People are dying, while greedy Americans complain about not being able to go to the movie every weekend.

Our lives are not that bad, and if we would fix our government (if it is possible it may have already passed the point of no return in some aspects), we could have LOTS of extra money to work with. An American citizen can pay up to 45% of their income in taxes this is more than Canada and the United Kingdom, both socialist countries who can provide things such as universal health care. I am not saying we need to offering things such as that, however, how is it that we have MORE citizens paying MORE money than other countries?

We have bloated government, too much money going into too many programs that don’t do anything. We are so concerned with making sure that our money is going to where it was designated that we create these redundant systems. Unfortunately we have so many systems in place that waste so much money, I don’t know if we even have the ability to take this task on. It would take all the senators (WORKING TOGEATHER) many months, possibly years, to complete this monumental task.

We need not complain about our gas prices, we need to figure a way to fix our government. This is my one big problem with the Democratic Party. They want to INCREASE our already massive government, which actually leads me to a big problem of the Republicans… they won’t fix the big government when we give them the chance… I can almost promise you that the Republican nominee will fix it.

Americans are so concerned with being able to go to the movies every week and such, that they lose sight of the fact that we really have it good. If we want to fix the problems that we have, we don’t need to look into other countries, we need to look here at home and actually see how much waist their is. This is the key to our success, if we don’t want to fix it is fine.

Fix the issues at hand, or live without the extra trip to the movies, or don’t go out to dinner every other night. Americans need to remember that we are still living very well… and to complain about 3.95 is pathetic, there are people around the world who are dying… I am sure they would be MORE than willing to trade lives with you and pay even $5 a gallon.

What is a depression?

An extended decline in general business activity, typically two consecutive quarters of falling real gross national product. (The American Heritage® Dictionary )

By this definition I would say that we indeed are in a recession, but we can get ourselves out of it. Americans are pretty smart people and have had many times when we lead the world with revolutionary ideas… and this one isn’t so revolutionary: Look out for the good of America, and not just yourself. Remember, the United States economy is key to world peace: It has been for years and last time we had a huge economic fall out, it sent the world into a world war. This isn’t just an egotistical American, this is simple fact.

Federal rebate checks are coming, because of the threat of this “threat” of recession. However, this dreadful recession might just be what the economy needs. After a quick Google search, I came up with a figure that supports exactly what I am saying:

The Nation’s international deficit in goods and services decreased to $58.2 billion in March from $61.7 billion (revised) in February, as imports decreased more than exports. (9 May 2008)

The trend is down in imports, if we can keep developing good products our exports will start to go up more, the future will be very bright for the United States. If we learn from our habits, and we make great strides for maintaining self reliance, and less dependency on not only foreign oil, but foreign goods, and technology… Our economy will stay great. We need to look at the past, see that all great countries who put dependency on many other nations always failed in the end.

If the United States must look out for its trade deficit, and must stand up and stop thinking that we are better than everyone else and we need other countries to do our dirty work because they are cheaper. Trusting our people to make our products at any price is better then sending our country into an economic depression, which will happen if we do not stand up for ourselves. Wal Mart may be cheap, but the cost of US lives if we go into a depression is much greater.

With all this you may be thinking: Travis, this mostly sounds bad… how is this good?

With our dollar declining, we are not able to spend as much money on imports and our goods are cheaper to other countries so they are buying more of our exports… increasing US jobs, and actually helping out the average American. More jobs will come back home, giving the factory workers who have spent “the last 50 years at the plant… and know nothing else”, a place to work.

We still have the issue of big box retailers (I am also guilty of shopping with them, once again, its an economy thing, I can’t afford to fill my tank with gas, I can’t afford to pay more for food), these companies who will take a cheap foreign made product over a good quality American made product for the difference of pennies a unit. However, with more jobs coming back to the United States we will see a steady increase in American incomes, and if people have the incentive to buy from more “Mom and Pop” stores, or even “Big Box” stores that still at least buy mainly American items you will see our economy sky rocket again. This down trend in our dollar is common, and if we take advantage of it the rewards will be great.

This internal growth will help us, its much more than just a suggestion its a requirement. The potential horrors that will be caused by a failing economy. If the United States economy goes into a depression (not a recession, remember this: Recession good, Depression horrible) there is no limit to the atrocities that can be committed. A depression from the United States will boost China into the lead power roll, who will team up with Russia who works with shady middle eastern countries, both China and Russia are friendly with Iran, who, if the United States loses its world control, will gain nuclear weapons. China, Russia, and Iran will become the world powers: Communism and Terrorism will be the controlling world force, democracy is out the window, the genocide in Africa will increase with a large Arab influence in world politics, the continent of Africa will erupt into even more violence which will enact treaties (I think Africa will be a large part of the next world war), Egypt who has remained fairly stable will fall, with the world falling into chaos will at some point be forced to use nuclear weapons which, if it doesn’t end the world, it will cause suffering to billions of people who will live a life that is worse than death.

So take those checks, go out, and buy some good American products, help your brother out, help our your future. This isn’t a Left vs. Right argument, we need to work together and realise that US Economy is KEY to world peace, and that we must look out for internal interests and hold US corporations to a moral standard, telling them that you like good US products. This recession is going to help people make that decision and will actually help the economy more than hurt it.

I was reading an article today by Stanley Crouch, an apparently committed Senator Obama supporter. I do not agree with his views, I think he is a leftest man with blinders on, in regards to other view points. He took note to bash Fox News, which also seems to be a great joy to the left (just as it seems bashing NBC is the goal of the right). I understand that Stanley has a right to post his column and its our right to read or not read (or for the paper to pick up the writer). However, after reading some blogs in support of his column, they were all taken over by right wing nut jobs who were probably looking for the post to bash him. This happens a lot (if not more) from left coming into the right blogs. I actually saw one news website that was talking about how it was out to balance the news by posting left propaganda (to the point they were lying) because they stated that (paraphrasing) “Cable and Network News, Talk Radio, and the Internet is all right wing crazys” most people (on both sides) will agree with me that the internet is very heavily left (read political articles on digg), and so is cable and network news. Fox News has studies that prove they are unbiased, although they sometimes seem they lean a little right. Mind you the staff is almost split 50/50 of liberals to conservatives. This website is constantly being flamed by right wing people all the time, because the new game is not to support people who agree with you… its to discredit and flame people who don’t.

Its really sad that the internet has degraded itself into a gigantic flame war, why even bother posting political blogs anymore? Just start posting your opinions in /b/ you will get the same response.

Remember everyone has the right to post what they feel on the internet, if you dissagree… then post your own blog (hey blogger.com and wordpress.com are giving them out for free… go figure) in response. Your blog will ping them back and they will see your response.