A random way of reframing belief hit me today so I thought I'd share it with you. The execution can naturally be done much more elegantly and be adapted per person, and per context.

"Belief is the absence of knowledge, you simply can't argue with this; its a truism, therefore wanting to believe something is the same as not wanting to know the reality of it.

By valuing 'faith'/'belief' so highly; have you realized that in essence you are valuing the lack of knowledge over knowledge, as faith is at its core a belief in something that is not observable?"

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After a fair bit of reflection I've developed a new argument that forms the basis of my moral 'thinking', a single logically sound (if not, leave a comment so I can improve upon it) argument that is overwhelmingly simple yet carries far reaching conclusions. Think of this as a teaser, a first post to test the logic as I refine the reasoning.

So lets get started, and think about a topic that most people think is inherently evil, a concept that civilized society has long considered morally unjustifiable.

This is slavery, the idea that a human can 'own' another person and use them like property, something that great leaders like Abraham Lincoln amongst many others have fought very hard to abolish here in the west. Slavery being the whole or part ownership of one person by another person, group of persons or legal entity.

So let me ask you this; who owns you? Does anyone own you? Can anyone own you?
Sure, its a pretty stupid question, of course no one owns you! you are yourself, its impossible for anyone to 'own' you in whole or in part.. or is it?

Lets abstract for a moment and think about this; if I own a block of land, you can't tell me what I can or can't do on that block of land unless my actions affect you or your property.. fairly simple isn't it?

If we've both got co-ownership of that land, then we can both exert some control over that land, but how about people?

If you can't 'own' a person in whole or in part, then you have absolutely no control over them; your only right to interfere with them occurs if their actions affect you.

In the sense that you have unlimited freedom to swing your fists around, until the moment that fist makes contact with my face; infringing on my freedom to remain uninjured.

It's so simple, straight forward and crystal clear; unless you 'own' someone OR their action infringes on your freedom you have no right whatsoever to impose limits or rules on their conduct.
Whether you steal a number of natives from Africa and force them to work on your cotton plantation or you exert your ownership over someone by disallowing them to do something that doesn't affect you its still slavery.

Stealing is stealing whether its a watch or a Lamborghini just like slavery is slavery whether you keep people in chains or you stop them from injecting a substance into their body.

So how about drug control? Simple. If I choose to inject a substance into my body you have no inherent rights to stop me from doing that unless I intended to inject those drugs into your body since you do not own me. Well.. that sure cleared up a lot of bullshit debating.

Gay marriage? Same thing; some number of gay men or women have chosen to 'marry', and as you do not own them they can do whatever the hell they want.

Violent movies, video games, pornography and censorship in general.. same principle, unless you are forced to participate in or watch any of the above, you have no ownership over someone that chooses to.

Same with prostitution.. one party wants sex, while the other is willing to provide the service all in discrete privacy at a private establishment for money. Again, if you do not own the location where the act is taking place, or any of the individuals involved any attempt to stop this is akin to slavery.

Sex slavery and 'pimping' is a very real and morally unjustifiable reality in many countries, and the cause of it is equally unethical governments creating black markets by imposing themselves on peoples free right to commerce.
A man and a woman may freely contract over sexual services providing they both agree to the terms, while a man may not contract out a woman to another man against the will of the woman. A free market leads to the former, a black market leads to the later.

My stance here is simple, it doesn't matter whether you agree with something or not, if two parties agree to something that doesn't affect you, you have no rights to interfere.

And at the end of the day, what's morally worse; claiming you 'own' other human beings, or engaging in a mutually beneficial contract with an agreeing party for sex in exchange for money.

Disclaimer: I do not take, intent to take or have ever taken any illicit drugs. I simply believe that liberty includes the freedom to do and say things that you personally don't agree with; and because of this I feel compelled to stand up for the certain moral principles such as the complete abolishment of slavery in every sense.

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Those that know me know this blog has been a bit of an experiment, an often neglected place for me to dump whatever caught my attention at the time.

It's given me a chance to learn drupal, the content management software that runs this blog, and an excellent piece of software for building a complete online businesses. It's been a great way of learning the framework to a standard package my business will be offering in the future; and ensuring that I understand how it works before outsourcing the work.

Yet its also a balance, while I've noticed a lot of people coming to this blog from google searching for pictures of Charles Lindbergh (famous aviator dude) after I wrote a post about him, in many ways I haven't written much about my personal life or my business.

The problem is that whatever I write here can be found by ANYONE, someone searching for would find my blog on google if I wasn't careful, and that's not good for business.

So its a fine line between writing what matters, and not putting off potential customers when a photo of me passed out, in the gutter dressed like.. well, some of you know which incident I'm referring to, and for those that don't; just comfortably move along now, and think of it only as a joke

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but the whole purpose of my business is to control the information the potential customers to my clients are exposed to, engineering a companies image and enabling their customers to be 'taught to buy', so to offer consulting I need to do a good job of controlling the information I expose to the public myself.

And if you were wondering, when I write on this blog, its actually an image and completely invisible to google, so go ahead, search for ; you won't find this blog in the results.

The irony here is its much easier to control the flow of information here, in the open, than it is on facebook; which is the major reason I'm not yet the proud owner of a profile. Though I'm slowly warming up to the idea, I'll write up the specific reasoning why I'm so reluctant to get a face book profile soon. And I assure you its more than just lethargy.

As time allows will divide posts into different categories, adding a nice menu at the top that quickly enables you to only view what you want to see, so if economics isn't your thing, you won't see posts related to it and vice versa.

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I came across a post about Moral Hazard by Jörg Guido Hülsmann from the Ludwig von Mises Institute and I highly recommend reading it whether your interested in economics or not.

It reminds me of hearing a mate say he was parking his car unlocked in a dodgy neighbourhood because the car was insured and he wanted to get a new car... I bet you've had similar experiences through your friends. Its just interesting how deep 'moral hazard' runs, and what outcomes it leads to; so if you haven't already, spend 2 minutes of your time and read the article..

The article got me thinking about the inherent incentives that exist in any system, whether its between a citizen and a citizen, a citizen and a government or a corporation and a corporation or a combination thereof.

And while you could rightfully argue that a cold economic analysis can be quite heartless; and that a society that doesn't provide a minimum level of support to those that need it the most is not 'a good society', the fact is that when incentives exist, they create a 'moral hazard' that can't just be swept under the table. And that in it of itself causes problems, and in some instances, problems that lead to systemic failures over time.

It almost seems any society is inherently designed to fail, whether it happens quickly or it takes 100's of years; its as though human nature at its irrational core can't remain stable, and empires must colapse and rebuild from time to time.

And still on the topic of moral hazard, you can see countries like the USA where generation after generation of inept irresponsible bureaucracy has lead to the country being over $48,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, yes, that's 48 trillion in debt.

About $160,000 for every man, woman and child, and since their GDP was $13.86 trillion (2007 est.) it almost seems like we're in the middle of watching a perfect text book example of a society more hell bent on maintaining the status quo than its own survival, with untold human suffering the only foreseeable conclusion.

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Anyone with an elementary knowledge of basic economics understands that there's a substitution effect when one good rises in price comparatively to a similar good, hell, its common sense really.

So this begs the question.. what happens when you increase the price of premixed drinks? Obviously people will move on to other comparatively cheaper beverages.. such as straight spirits.. Uh huh.. giving people a disincentive to consume drinks that are sealed against being spiked and come with a predictable level of alcohol can hardly be called intelligent when you do it in the name of reducing binge drinking.

Yeah, your really likely to get less drunk off free pouring vodka into a glass and adding some orange juice.. yeah.. good thinking there! Now add into the equation the cumulative effects of increased intoxication on your 'pouring skills'.. yep, there's a recipe for success, if by success, you mean half naked, commadose and lying in the gutter.

Before we know it, they'll be preaching for abstinence only sex education to reduce std's.. because that really works.. (In case anyone can't tell, I'm being sarcastic.. I hate moral puritans more than the sick feeling you get the day after playing goon of fortune at a party)

BUT WAIT, what if the government does what it does best and taxed ALL alcohol more, wouldn't that sure strike fear into those evil would be binge drinkers?! Well.. Not really.. or only in the way it wasn't intended. Think about it for a moment; go to any poor neighbourhood, hell, go to any bottle shop in Croydon on a Saturday night and you tell me how 'substitutable' the consumers in that market segment consider their alcohol consumption.

Ever wonder why people choose to get really drunk after losing a job, when logical analysis would imply its the time they can least afford it? Ever wondered why you commonly see men from poor neighbourhoods drinking themselves into a stupor, when a rational logical analysis would suggest they would be better of investing their funds in education?

It's because alcoholics don't consider alcohol a substitutable good, they will forgo luxuries, more nutritional food and even basic necessities before they will give up that hard earned slab of johnny walker and coke.

Naturally things aren't so black and white, the substitution effect does come into play in a number of ways as;

1. As the price of alcohol increases, other substitutes such as illicit drugs, misuse of legal drugs (flu medicine + a shot of vodka for the determined type) become increasingly attractive, not to mention the all time recession favourite beverage of pure ethanol with a dash of lemon. The net impact will end up being harmful consumption of intoxicating beverages remains the same, while safer beverages are consumed less and more harmful illegal intoxicants are consumed more.
2. Those people who this law isn't targeted, the responsible type, the type who only casually consume drinks will feel unfairly punished and will consume less alcohol.

I'm sure the government will feel proud when they have successfully converted the average teen binge drinking session from cheap case wine to a bottle of vodka and a packet of flu medicine, even at $60 for a bottle of cheap vodka and $12 for a packet of flue medicine that's about $5 a person to get completely wasted, or for the really cheap and more traditionally inclined a $3 bottle of methylated spirits and a lemon.

All in all this new paternalistic state is an assault on civil liberties, its against the principle of freedom to make personal choices and its economically wholly ineffective at achieving its stated outcome.

If Kevin Rudd seeks to increase teenage use of intoxicating stimulants while appeasing the Christian right I salute his cunningness, if not, then I hope he stops trying to be Australia's dad, and refreshes his understanding of economics 101. He's a smart guy, and a step forward from the howard years, so lets hope he snaps out of it *crosses fingers*.

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Theres something striking about a good comedian, the way they can 'joke' with concepts too politically incorrect for the media to touch, the way they can make you laugh and the way they can make you think.

Its a sad state of affair in deed when while the mainstream media is distracted by britany spears mental instability we get the best political comentry from those who's job it is to make us laugh. But then again, hasn't politics just become a bit of a joke anyway, if it wasn't for the constant risk of nuclear war we'd all be laughing at that funny monkey roaming the white house.

 So for an appetizer of the poltically incorrect poignant commentry that awaits you if you delve into the rest of his material, take a look at the following vide on youtube:

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Just thought I'd have a bit of a rant post after coming across some of the brain dead right wing drivel on an age poll about allowing R18+ video games, the post is here:
http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/archives//009002.html

Really, is there anything more annoying than some misguided joe average wanting to stop you from doing something that doesn't affect him or her?

Think about it, politicians mostly get elected by promising their voters they will stop someone else doing something their voters disaprove off, and usually something that has no personal impact on those voters.

You could start a war with a "save the children" rallying call, never mind the fact that the cost of a single 'small ish' war could buy the food needed to keep all the worlds malnourished children alive for at least a year or more. No, these things are never based in logic, there will always be enough parents desperate to stop their children thinking independently, or god forbid, do something different.

Makes you wonder, what do these 'champions of the family' think or say to themselves right before giving a fire and brimstone pitch? Do they take a shot of vodka, sigh and go "damnit, i'm getting too old for this shit"... or do they.. actually believe it?

Anyway, this is the post I put in the comments, thought it got the point across:

"People have the fundamental inalienable right to freedom of speech and freedom to view information (we're not China or Afghanistan.. remember?). A game is a form of expression and is protected like every other art form, whether you approve of their content or not.

Its time to rise up against culture destroying hypocrites; its easy to stand up and say how much you respect the heroes of old that have thought and died for freedom, now prove it's not all hollow words and take some action by standing up for the freedom of people that you disagree with to watch things you don't have to."

 

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We always hear about the problems with our aging population, and the solution proposed always seems to be to let me young people migrate into the country, or encourage the birth rate to increase through various 'incentives'...

Which when you think about it, is just a little bit stupid.. really, it costs about $500,000+ (amount does not include loss of productivity or time investment changing diapers etc) to bring up the average kid from 0-21, and the government pays people $5,000 as a 'bonus' for having a kid. If the pure idiocracy of this idea doesn't shine through straight away, all you have to do is to take a bus or a train ride through a dodgy neighbourhood enough times and you'll eventually see some meth addicted failure talking to another unwashed drug addicted social outcast about how they or one of their acquaintance's is having a kid merely to take advantage of the governments 'baby bonus'.

 Eugenics has gotten a bit of a bad name for good reasons, yet this is exactly what this government is doing, its providing an environment that favours 'one' kind of person, because weather you create a system that weeds out the intelligent or the not so intelligent, your still ultimately engaging 'nudging' the selection criteria.

 Now think about this for a moment,  the only people that this 'financial' incentive will work on are people that would consider getting a $5,000 lump sum for taking on $500,000 in 'debt'.. and the governments system will selectively add MORE of these people into our gene pool, as anyone else would choose to have a kid on other reasons than a small one time bonus.

So what if you instead considered aging a disease? just because everyones born 'sick', an uncurable sickness with a 100% mortality rate makes it no less of a disease. It's caused by both evolution selecting for most offspring rather than longevity, along with many many minor failures in each successive duplication of cells, an interesting situation when you consider every cell in your body is guaranteed to be new every 7 years.

 Scientists are constantly looking at new ways of extending life, and many believe that its fairly reasonable to expect that if your reading this about now (your 20-25 years old) you'll end up not aging as medical science continues to improve at a faster rate than your body breaks down..

Theres already a pill coming to market in the next couple of years that will simulate calorie deprivation, which counter intuitively puts cells to work at higher efficiency, and has so far lead to dramatic life extensions and quality of life, in particular middle life improvements in mammals it was tested on.

 Its interesting, science says that this pill could extend the average life span by 9 years in humans if everyone took it, and to put this into perspective curing cancer completely with no side effects would only increase the average life span by 2 years..

So how about it?  It would make sense both in a quality of life and economically if we tackled the aging population problem not with more kids, but with putting more and more work into removing age as a problem in the first place. Simply put, fighting a problem is very stupid if its feasible to remove the problem in the first place.

 It would be easy to make a pill like this available for free through a government program, and extend the retirement age to 70. You could keep doing this while technology improves, and at the very least cushion the impact of our aging population.

Just think about it, a couple billion worth of funds that are already invested in the trillions of dollars in super anuation could do some pretty amazing stuff in this area.

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Sometimes you come across something that just strikes you, it makes you think, a short statement, maybe even a picture or a sound and in that flash something else becomes clear, for an instant you feel awake, like you have just woken up.

I had one of those moments reading this quote, its from a condemed man that was executed in 1985 and in a nutshell it says whats fucked about america.

I want to thank Father Walsh for his spiritual help. I want to thank Bob Ray (Sanders) and Steve Blow for their friendship. What I want people to know is that they call me a cold-blooded killer when I shot a man that shot me first. The only thing that convicted me was that I am a Mexican and that he was a police officer. People hollered for my life, and they are to have my life tonight. The people never hollered for the life of the policeman that killed a thirteen-year-old boy who was handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. The people never hollered for the life of a Houston police officer who beat up and drowned Jose Campo Torres and threw his body in the river. You call that equal justice. This is your equal justice. This is America’s equal justice. A Mexican’s life is worth nothing. When a policeman kills someone he gets a suspended sentence or probation. When a Mexican kills a police officer this is what you get. From there you call me a cold-blooded murderer. I didn’t tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn’t pump any poison into anybody’s veins from behind a locked door. You call this justice. I call this and your society a bunch of cold-blooded murderers. I don’t say this with any bitterness or anger. I just say this with truthfulness. I hope God forgives me for all my sins. I hope that God will be as merciful to society as he has been to me. I’m ready, Warden.

Source: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/porterhenrylast.htm

Makes you wonder if we're that much better at giving equal justice for all here in Australia, even if we (thankfully) don't have the death sentence, injustice will always be injustice no matter how its perpetuated.

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Hey there!

I mentioned that I was working on an astronomy theme for a client sometime back; unfortunately my computer practically died and set me back a week, while I got caught up in other things and never got a chance to show it off.. Now it changed a bit from the original design at the clients request so I can't stand behind the colour scheme 100% but I thought it turned out alright anyway. You can see it below:

Basically I've taken on a few relatively low paid jobs to get a few testimonials / references and just enough cash to launch a large advertising campaign; my previous strategies weren't working well enough so I've been working tirelessly day and night to relaunch my online business with a serious 'umph' of advertising behind it.

A lot of the work has been spent developing a standard 'product', something that can help any small to medium size business skyrocket their marketing success, something that's not just a 'pretty web page' but an integrated strategy because lets think about it at the moment, I might enjoy digital art (was actually close to choosing 3d design as a uni course) but its not what I want to be doing for 'business', and its certainly not something that's going to get me any closer to buying a brand spanking new Lamborghini with cash.

Actually this is probably the most frustrating and most exciting part of my work at once, I've learnt a lot, I know what doesn't work, I've come up with a standard solution that a huge portion of businesses could use, its all so much clearer than when I started.. but, it *always* takes longer to perfect, there's still plenty of knuckling down working before I can show it off here, and before I can *really* market it.

If you know me through AIESEC, this is something you may have heard me allude to or talk about previously, and its a solution that's absolutely 100% relevant to AIESEC, in fact, discussions and announcements are in the boiler right now.. so I'll keep you updated

What I can tell you is that its a 'complete online solution', at the core is a website that is designed to handle customers, enabling them to manage their 'contact' details online, and giving them incentives to sign up (free ebook / free report / 10% off for life, depends on the business).

This integrates with an email solution that enables you to send personalized emails ('Hi John!' etc) to individual 'interest' groups based on your customers preferences... imagine sending an email to everyone that's interested in 'product a + product b', or creating a series of 'insider tips' for your industry, automatically emailed, with automatic personalisation to those people that put that down as a preference each 2 weeks, or whatever's appropriate.

As well as providing this, users are able to 'invite' their friends.. now this is always the hardest bit because most people in their right mind don't just give their friends email addresses out for free so depending on the market the challenge for each client is to figure out a 'bonus' to people who invite others (ebook? joint discount?.. can work in a number of situations..), and possibly the most powerful feature is the ability to invite people on your msn, gmail or yahoo address book... now THAT'S a viral marketing 'weapon of mass destruction'..

Again, this is the kind of backbone you need to stay in your customers minds, and when its able to work well with online advertising campaigns, showing you exactly how much you spend on each customer for each keyword group compared to how much they bought; it's shaping up to be an indispensable business tool.

In other news it appears the formatting of this blog seems a little screwed up on some browsers so I apologize, when I get some spare time I'll give the theme another upgrade, and provide a nicer way of separating philosophical articles and personal blog posts

Looking forward to having a beer, coffee or cocktail with you all again soon, just been so busy with the above.. this 'workaholism' really doesn't beat a good pint of Heineken and the company of friends.

P.S.
Here's a 'preview', or more like it, something I've been toying with.. consider it extremely rough (just design concept, no 'content') and also ignore the lines / boxes that don't look like they should be there.. because.. they 'shouldn't'..its a quick photoshop mockup. Note the headings will slide in and out when clicked on, revealing more sub content. Also note that the block around the 'logo' should not be there, that the logo is subject to change, and if your curious, does draw inspiration from this.

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Warmly,
Pete.

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Well, it sounds like its from some cliché movie or crappy self help book; but seriously, have you ever stopped and asked yourself who you would be if you stripped off all that social conditioning, all those things your parents have told you to be, and people have said you are.. Hell, while you’re at it, who would you be if you looked different, or you lived in a different time?

Stop and think about it for a moment, where did your last thought come from? And the one before that? Was it original, or did you think it before.. Maybe when you think deeper still, who came up with that thought before you? How was the seed sowed?

Have you noticed how you tend to think certain thoughts when your in different places, maybe you go to a certain room in the house and bam, you realise your thinking the same thing you were last time you were in that same room.

If you had grown up 200 years ago, would you have owned a slave? Would you fight to free that slave or would you fight to keep 'it'? And if you had lived in Nazi Germany during the war, would you have thought Hitler, fled the country or stood patriotically behind your countries ruler and all mighty protector?

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Sometimes I wonder whether we're simply some semi intelligent post ape species, marching inexhaustibly towards our own destruction, too fuelled by the evolutionary forces that brought us there, too stupid to see it coming and all together too clever to survive our own tools of destruction.

It’s like humanity is half way between two points, like holding a giant target in the no mans land between two warring armies; we either need to be a lot smarter or a lot more stupid, because as we are now, we’re smart enough to be able to kill everything and stupid enough to be willing to do it.

"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs."-- Albert Einstein

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.~ George Bernard Shaw

You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.~ [Usenet]

All great truths begin as blasphemies.~ George Bernard Shaw

So the question remains, who are you really? Are you in charge of your own mind or are you simply a product of your past, just the result of millions of iterations of an evolution guided gene mixing process; enabling you to recognise patterns and repeat them more efficiently than earlier models till that day where you too, like those that shaped the environment you lived in; expire, reduced to nothing more than the fading memory of those still alive.

Could you be something more than the flesh others see; a soul that has never lived before, has never died before but will be judged by your actions; a judgement that will propel it to the heights of eternal bliss, of infinite rewards and the best of everything.. or.. doom you to the fiery pits of a place so terrible its worth staying celibate just to avoid.

A binary choice between the blackest of black and the lightest of light, an infinite reward or punishment, forever repeated as a consequence of a finite set of actions in a varying world.

A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.~ Albert Einstein

Or maybe this life is simply one in a series of many, the only purpose to continue to improve upon the previous life; doomed to repeat your mistakes until you learn to change them and graced to have the opportunity to do so.

Do you believe any of these doctrines? Is it even possible ‘believe’ anything while remaining ‘yourself’? And can you accept that ultimately nothing can ever be true, including this statement; just like you can never stand in the same spot in a river twice..

It’s pretty obvious things change, fashions come and go, empires rise and fall, economies boom and bust, conquerors conquer and in turn are conquered; yet is it obvious that like everything before now, that which exists now will be looked back on like we now look back on slavery, black and white TV’s and disco.

We all look back at Hitler disgusted, like we think of those Germans that were too blind with patriotism and fear to oppose him with an air of superiority; knowing that we would never do that ourselves, just like we shake our head at how bad the ‘great recession’ was.. but do you look at these things and ask yourself how will history look at what you did? And how long before it repeats itself, as it always tends to do.

God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. […] -- George W Bush

I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work. ~ Adolf Hitler

Oh gee, now I’m taking quotes from Bush and Hitler to make Bush look like Hitler… But, I’m sorry to disappoint, as I won’t be putting on the tinfoil hat and screaming conspiracy, besides, there are enough differences between the two to make such comparisons absurd. Think about it, Hitler killed millions of Jews, and was a relatively intelligent asshole.

No, I’m asking you if you’ve thought how you will look back at yourself in 20 years time, the way you thought and acted now, and whether you believe your immune to the current layer of propaganda… Remember, Iraq Iran really has weapons of mass destruction and it’s crazy and capable enough to use them on the whole world, guaranteeing its total eradication from the map in a suicidal act of jealous rage if America doesn’t step in and save us all from this terrible, albeit avoidable calamity. Honest to God, a friend of a friend of mine said he saw it on fox news.

No, the whole purpose of this lengthy post is to rattle a few feathers, to make you stop and ask yourself whether you’re wearing a mental veil, to question who you are and why, if for any reason you’re here.

Just as a picture is drawn by an artist, surroundings are created by the activities of the mind. ~ Buddha

Do you believe in good and bad? Who is good, who is bad in your eyes? Well, heres a little more food for thought, its interesting when you hear what people have really said, isn’t it?

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... we need believing people. ~ Adolf Hitler

I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. ~ President George Bush, August 27, 1988

If I could find a way to get [Saddam Hussein] out of there, even putting a contract out on him, … ahh … if the CIA still did that sort of thing, . . . ahh . . . assuming it ever did . . . . . . . I would be for it. ~ Richard Nixon

I would have made a good pope. ~ Richard Nixon

Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity? ~ Arthur C. Clarke

I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine. ~ George Washington Administration Treaty

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? It is because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. ~ J. Krishnamurthi

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?’ ~ Quentin Crisp

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~ Stephen Roberts

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes that seemed too good to leave out..

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. ~ Carl Sagan

I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong ... No Vietcong ever called me nigger. ~ Muhammad Ali, stripped of boxing title, convicted of a felony for refusing to serve during the Vietnam War

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~ Noam Chomsky

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. ~ John Maynard Keynes

We need a common enemy to unite us. ~ Condoleezza Rice, March 2000

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer. ~ Henry Kissinger (Former US Secretary of State)

If there has to be a blood bath, let's get it over with. ~Ronald Reagan, Vietnam

I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good and it would spread a lively terror. ~ Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after World War I

Shit, I almost posted a blog post without including a YouTube video.. Well, these are good food for thought.. the first contends that we're all monkeys, good for a laugh and makes you think a little, as long as you don't find its contention interlectually insulting.

This one is the intro from idiocracy, and I highly recommend watching it, and the whole movie as well (for its underlying political message), this clip just makes fun of american hilbillies, and does so very elegantly, scary thing is, if you add another 50 years of fox news it just might end up becoming true sooner than we think.

These last two are just thrown in for good measure, the first being a cartoon of humans acting like a virus, and the second being agent smiths synopsis of humans from the matrix; can you see humanity behaving in this way? can you see yourself behaving in this way?

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Well.. not only has my new blog shown up on google already, and is ranking #1 for the keyword Petes Pad which is a little freak since the domain name has only been registered for a month and NOTHING LINKS TO IT... looks Googles started a new psychic search service, damn; I can't even begin to imagine the marketing potential that would offer, or what kind of scary pornographic 'niche' markets would suddenly get a lot more traffic.

What's also weird here is my previous 'personal' blog didn't even rank in the top 10 for the keyword 'Petes Pad' even though its been up for over 6 months and its written in its fricken title!.. guess it just goes to show just how much google cares about the text in a domain name for ranking a site.

Anyway, I got to the whole point because I tried searching for the keyword for the hell of it, and low and behold, there was a youtube video that some chick made called 'Petes Pad' which was basically her giving a tour of her boyfriend's apartment. Coincidentally, I'd probably have a similar arrangement, artwork and all when I get around to moving out.

So if you feel like wasting 50 seconds of your life, go ahead and watch this:

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Have you ever just been browsing the internet, reading a book, a magazine or simply watching TV and some character has just grabbed your attention, theres something fascinating about them and you just feel compelled to read more about them, their life and their beliefs?

Well on the 33rd anniversary of his death I thought it might be a good occasion to break a blogging dry spell and talk a bit about one such person who's fascinated me; and this person is Charles Lindbergh.

The first person to fly solo from New York to Paris in a single engine plane custom built back in 1927.

Not least did he succeed in flying solo in a single engine plane that cost ~$11,000 to build when competitors using multi-engined planes costing upwards of $100,000 had failed; he saw through the prevailing opinion that twin engine planes were safer because in the event of engine failure you still had a backup because he reasoned that in the event of engine failure above the atlantic you were as good as dead anyway, and with 2 engines your chances of engine failure were effectively twice as high. 

An interesting character, he was the first person to make mass celebrity status, much to his unwillingness he was revered, followed and stalked by countless followers in a gloomy period of american history, particularly around the depression he was the hero the people badly needed.

What makes Lindbergh so fascinating is his clear thinking and innovativeness despite popular sentiments, he opposed American involvement in 2nd world war because it wasn't americans business and it wasn't a threat to them, because america could quite easily defend itself with its geographic position, almost makes you think of Iraq / Iran now doesn't it? Whether history agrees with this or not, he reasoned that Russia was the bigger threat than germany, something that he later in life commented later on in his life had proven to be true.

He helped secure funding and supported the early development of rockets despite no one in establishment understanding their importance, he was involved in significant developments of the first artificial heart, campaigned for protecting the environment in a period where this was unheard of and above all else, was a pioneer of aviation. 

Despite his flaws he was himself, he thought and reasoned for himself and that's something that I admire and value in a person, I wish we had more Charles Lindbergh's and less 'fake' people trying to be or pretend to be something they're not.

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Just had to add these video's.. awesome stuff..

And last but not least, Pub Sports!, if you haven't seen this.. well.. stop reading and do it now, it's a love or hate kinda thing, but you need to watch the first 5 minutes at least.. needless to say I ended up watching the whole thing..

Oh and checkout possibly the Best Blond Joke ever made, its a good one, I was literally in stitches laughing over it.

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Ok, the marketer and public relations engineer in me can't help but laugh just a little at the expense of the Church of England.. no, not because their views are outdated and its a little funny to see their pathetic attempts to stay relevant in a modern society but because they've just become the latest division of Sony Entertainments public relations team.

The bittersweet irony of an institution that has mastered the arts of mind controlling the masses, invoking fear and unbridled loyalty and fanaticism at the expense of reason and progress has itself become a pawn in the chess board of the of the marketing geniuses launching one of Sony's latest games.. Resistance: The Fall of Man.

Think about the perfect execution for a moment here, your marketing to a market that (in my opinion) tends to be more disenchanted with the world, and at least the church, a market that enjoys watching and participating in virtual violence, a market that is more technologically savvy and younger.. in other words a market that doesn't give a shit what the church preaches and probably to a large extent might even consider the churches disapproval to be all the testimonials they need to go out and buy a product.

Whatever that old saying is, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' rings true here, the church has offered the best endorsement that it could, that a game is violent, graphically realistic, bloody, involves the death of hundreds and has enraged 'parents groups'.. yeah.. teenagers hearing isolationist parent groups telling them that a game is bad is really going to slow down sales for Sony? Or more than likely, have the complete opposite effect because Sony has managed to offend those religious groups in just the way it needed for them to become unwilling promoters of its product to its market.

What can you say, maybe its just [the churches] 'bad' karma? The Church is after all just another business entity, sure, this statement might offend you a little if your religious, but then again if you really are religious you'd value the truth over the pain that reaching the truth costs you, and the truth is the cost of building a cathedral could sure feed a lot of starving people world wide.. but then again, maybe 'compassion' needs to be put into the perspective of it being more important that people can come and hear your preaching than it is that they have food.

After all simply being a member of the aforementioned church guarantees you the infinite reward of its membership.. right after you die, so they're just doing all those poor people a favour by enabling them a chance for something far greater than food, an unprovable promise of infinite riches.. later, right after they're dead.

Kind of reminds me of those get rich schemes, those pyramid chain letters or those marketing letters you read where the price has been slashed from $4096.00 to just $96.00 if you order right now.. its like when you go to a store and notice theres a sale, you might buy something, but when you notice they're always having super bargain 70% of everything sales it becomes a little.. scammy; to put it eloquently... and consumers are wising up to this. While the 'business people of the past' are rapidly losing market share and being beaten by more cunning businesses and Sony is a prime example of the later.

Its kind of funny that the Church has lost to a company that even I made more than last year.. Thats right, I turned a greater profit than Sony Games did last year... Think about this for a moment, the Church 'just got used' by a business that loses ~$400,000,000 million selling an in demand product.. but then again, you can't exactly call the inquisition, the earth being flat or the sun revolving around the earth declarations just to name a few as the Church's most effective product launches, its what happens when theres an unnatural monopoly, they forget to innovate and only think about crushing their competition. In a free thinking open market logic is to the church as random crashes and viruses are to Microsoft; its just a pitty that the government hasn't launched a similar antitrust case against the former.

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Welcome .. Ok fine, this isn't it but I'll be talking about it instead...

Gary Halbert, probably the worlds best copywriter and direct marketing genius has put his entire newsletter archive online and as he used to charge $195.00 a year theres some decent value right there, and that's even forgeting the incredible value the aptly named 'prince of print' presents in each of these drops of wisdom.

Sadly, the man has recently passed away, and he'll be dearly missed as one of those marketers that had true integrity, that paved his own way and wouldn't take shit from anyone.

To see this treasure trove just click here or to see a small sample that I thinks so good even a law student could enjoy it, hehe, you know who you are and you know I'm just joking. All the best in your exams people, you know how much I wish I was you, except I don't because.. I don't have exams!
P.S.

If I were you I'd download his entire newsletter archive since he won't be adding to them anymore, and its uncertain how long they will remain up, but then again I'm me so I already have.

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Theres nothing worse than waiting in line at some fast food joint, maybe McDonalds, hungry jacks or KFC.. it doesn't really matter which one it is, except usually KFC is the worse one (probably why I try not to eat there that much).. you know, your feeling a little bit guilty about eating that massive amount of crap food, but your hungry / drunk so you just don't care..

And then while waiting in line, your bored so you start looking around and you notice the other people in line and around the store and then you realize they're all fat. Its like an impending disaster that your too apathetic to avoid, your staring at that big fat piece of lard in line infront of you, slowly etching closer to the front of the line.. maybe you feel a little guilty, but you can't be bothered leaving so you just continue.. Telling yourself you'll be healthy for a bit and make up for it, but that never happens.

Then finally when you get your meal, your so paranoid after the horrors you've just gone through, so after taking a single bite you already feel bloated.. But hell, you paid $7~ for that shit so your damn well gonna finish it.

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I'm so sick of hearing the BS that the media keeps spouting at us, seriously it makes me wonder what kind of idiots they think we are, when you hear people on the news, when you see them talk its so damn obvious when things are just propaganda.

Most of what we see is just corporate PR, like when you see a 'report' about how anti depressants are totally safe and actually good for you, that's in a totally different format to what the station normally uses.. that fails to mention where its from, and that spends more time talking about how you can safely use anti depressives for children with some emotional soppy story while presenting almost NO concrete data..

Dunno if anyone else saw it, was on sbs news, and it was just so obviously simply some well executed PR by the drug companies that I don't know whether to be scared or excited; scared in that so many 'sheeple' will blindly follow its falsified advice and excited in the potential cash cow of an industry I'm moving in to.

Conversely conspiracy theories piss me off because its so easy to make up random things like bush is really an alien (common, do you really think an alien race that's advanced enough to travel the universe would go to the trouble of installing one of the most dim witted presidents in the history of america? personally I wouldn't trust him to install a light bulb, let alone run a country or pilot a space ship), everyones got their own 'take' on whats really going on that the only thing we know for certain is we don't know whats going on.

Personally, I think the closest we'll ever get to knowing the truth is by asking "who really benefits?", while ignoring all morals or values because its pretty obvious those in power do too, and that even if they didn't, morals are so subjective anyway that they're not useful for a non-biased study.

So, every time you see something on the news, stop and ask yourself who is it that really gains? Who gets more money? Who gets more power? and which religion gets to say 'its right'.. further summarizing the above into just Money because that's what it all really is, we can move forward and ask ourselves "who gets money?".

This has lead me to wonder whats really going on with Iraq, we all already know that its because of money (oil companies / military contractors) and not because of 'weapons of mass destruction' they've practically admitted it, either that or they're pretending as though they're still looking after 4 years. And whats interesting is that just before America invaded, Iraq was about to move its oil trading to EUROs.. interesting..

Basically America's entire economy is based on oil, and more importantly, its based on everyone in the world using US dollars to trade it because it forces countries to buy US dollars which is also why America has been able to run such a high foreign deficit for so long. Its like you're a coke dealer and the guy in charge of approving and enforcing your credit card is a regular client, pretty neat setup, until the guy switches to a new dealer and the bank forces you to pay it all back and you go bankrupt.

So... from a certain point of view if your America your forced to use oil, not because its better, not because there aren't any alternative fuels that are much better but because if you don't, you'll be forced to pay back all the money you owe.. which in turn you will have to default on.. which in turn.. well.. America gone bankrupt? Well to put it nicely the 1930's would seem like a time of extreme economic prosperity compared to this.

I don't really hold it against them, they simply only care about themselves and they're forced to keep forcing countries to trade oil in USD, and cars to continue to use petrol (who killed the electric car? )... But they are an economic inefficiency and they are costing the rest of the world a lot of lost production and loss of life, so as the 'markets' begin to return to equilibrium it will be interesting to see how far will America go to preserve themselves?

I'd like to end this rant on one note, and that's an intuition that's been sitting with me for some time.. and that's that we'll be seeing a war with Iran in the next month, or at most 3 months and that we'll be seeing a complete 'pull out' (also known as tactical withdrawn or evacuation) from Iraq in about a year (unless the conflict significantly expands into the rest of the region..). America and Israel have been complaining and trying to make up too many excuses for a confrontation for this to go quietly.. think about it.. Israel has 400 nukes.. Iran is POSSIBLY trying to DEVELOP one.. or a couple.. Without the capacity to strike countries outside the region America doesn't need to worry, and Israel shouldn't need to worry either because anyone that attacks them is virtually assured to be wiped out as well...Yet they're still 'talking tough' and trying to escalate things.
Then again, every report says attacking Iran would be either stupid or suicidal.. but who benefits? The oil companies get contracts in captured countries (assuming any land is captured), US dollars are still used for trading oil globally (Iran is apparently opening an exchange that will use EURO's for oil shortly.. and knowing what we've learnt from history, namely Iran..), Israel gets to kill a few Arabs they don't like, The weapon companies get a lot of contracts (even better if the war goes badly, because the US military will be forced to upgrade) and the conservative white christians get themselves another crusade, and considering that about 40% of Americans believe in prophecies that suggest Jesus will be back and save THEM once a major war in the middle east erupts.. Why wouldn't you help things along if you were one of them so that you could go to heaven faster?

We'll see, I just wanted to write down my feelings, something to look back on a few months on and either make fun of myself or get depressed over.

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Well, I've chosen not to go to Adelaide for a week unfortunately.. I was so tempted to go, meet up with a bunch of old friends and make a few more in the process; ultimately I have some commitments that need work and I'm already behind schedule. Damnit, I miss you guys :'(
That said, currently ranks #14 for the keyword australian seo which I'm very happy with, its been about 2 weeks since I got a couple of inbound links and my promoting it has been very sloppy (been busy with other projects) but this is pretty awesome, considering that I'm up against companies that have been in this for years, in fact I'm up against pretty much every Australian search engine optimization and marketing business out there and theres some pretty decent competition for this keyword.

I plan to be in the top 3 in about 2-3 months, and will actively promote it after 1 month which would equal about 3-5 highly targeted visitors a day just for this ONE keyword at the very least.

On another note I just made another hundred on commission from my parents website, which considering that my current project (about 1 more month) is a massive restructuring of our online marketing efforts I'm also happy with. Theres just something about running your own business that when you do get paid, even if its just $2.5 you get the drive to make more.

For those that don't know my parents are psychologists and have a number of elearning courses in counselling and my job is to run the technical and marketing side and theres is to make the content for which we have a 50/50 profit sharing agreement. Will update you guys how its going, but I see some very good potential here, about 1-5 people search for our main keyword a day, and the slightly less targeted 'counselling courses' has about 50,000 searches a month ... Wish me luck because chances are if this works as well as I hope and your reading this, I'll be inviting you out for a night of cocktails at my complete expense if I get successful

Well we'll see, it pays to be positive.. but considering I gave up $30,000 for a year of work experience working for a finance company you'd better hope this gamble pays off because otherwise I can so see myself bullshitting how much of a valuable lesson all this was to a potential employer in a job interview..
Alright, back to the real work now..

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I really don't think I can add anything that would do this story justice so.. yeah.. umm.. have a read of this.. no really.. what the fk..?!

"My husband thinks I'm not fat enough," complained Zeinabou Mint Bilkhere, explaining that her husband found her pretty during the last months of her pregnancy. Since giving birth, the weight has dropped, however, and with it his desire for her.

Although few women are force-fed today, many feel pressured to be bigger-than-average. Like many, Bilkhere has turned to a more scientific method of weight gain, using foreign-made appetite-inducing pills.

Wrapped in a floor-length veil, the 24-year-old, who is roughly a size 8, opens her purse and pushes a fistful of change across the counter of a roadside pharmacy for a box of Anactine, a Moroccan-made antihistamine.

The pills, commonly prescribed for hay fever, also induce hunger. They and similar drugs replace a more blunt instrument, recently outlawed by the government: animal steroids intended for fattening camels.

"When I was little, my mother hit me to eat because I didn't want to be fat. Now I want to be big because men like that," said Bilkhere, who wants to gain more than 20 pounds.

But many men say they prefer voluptuous women.

Isselmou Ould Mohamed says he loves his wife's 200-pound body and was pleased when she began adding even more weight during pregnancy. When he learned she had started walking around the soccer stadium to try to shed the extra pounds, he was revolted.

"I don't like skinny women. I want to be able to grab her love handles," said the 32-year-old. "I told her that if she loses a lot of weight, I'll divorce her."

Although Mauritania is the only culture known to force-feed girls, obesity is popular across much of the Arab world. Nomadic peoples struggling to survive the harsh desert came to prize fatness as a sign of health.

Well.. Thank F#CK I don't live there.. I dunno, how could you find rolls of fat attractive? Ignore me, I'm just in shock... Sure, add a bottle of vodka and.. well, we've all been there.. but these people are sober!

I guess it just goes to prove how relative beauty is.. And that this culture doesn't believe in women on top.. Or broken ribs is a sign of status that only true alpha males posses.. Then again its not really that much different than what we see in the west..

One word; emo. You know, whenever some unique minority is bagged the conversation invariably leads to emo's, but seriously, a little off topic, why would someone go to so much length to look like shit..
Speaking of which, is anyone up for an emo bagging night? like, I was thinking of going to an emo club in a business suit and to anyone that asks, I can authentically say "I'm the biggest individual here, Isn't that the purpose of this whole thing? to express yourself rather than being part of a movement?"... Or maybe a shirt that says "My daddy raped me, and now that we've established that I'm more emotionally distressed than you; lets go out.".. then again that might work which would be bad.. which is like picking up in a church, too easy... that is according to one of my mates, who just happens to proudly proclaim that he joined a church just to pick up, but with the unfortunate bundled BS you have to listen to and put up with its just not worth it.

Anyway, our perception really is all relative, being a hypnotist I shouldn't be too shocked when the stuff I keep telling people proves to be true. And if theres one thing that's unattractive it's a girl who's good looking who keeps bitching about her weight.. god damnit, if your reading this you know who you are, and no your not fat so get the f#ck over it.

P.S.

Yes, I haven't actually typed the F word on this blog, and no its not because I'm delicate, its because I will be migrating THIS blog to a new 'anonymous' domain and converting this one to discuss internet marketing over the next 1-2 months. So I don't want to possibly mark this domain as 'adult' in googles index when it will be targeted towards business. And yes, for those that care, I will post the new domain here when its done.

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So, Its the 6th of April and I'm now 21 years old.. Awesome..

Another Birthday, another year, another haircut, another painfully sick feeling in the morning, another pay day, another one of lifes cycles has completed only to begin again.

Never really saw the big deal with birthdays, except to act as an excuse to have a party which brings me to the real reason why your probably still reading this.. Yes I will be having a party, it just wont be for another 1 - 2 months. Because I need money (i've scabbed of all your tabs so.. yeah.. a few people would probably kill me if I didn't return the favour), and I need time to organize some cool place..

And because my parents are talking about moving soon, I've been thinking I might have a hybrid house warming / 21st party in my new place which should be much closer to the city.. I guess we'll see, if your reading this chances are you'll get an invite

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I know its been awhile, and actually this post is a bit late since has been up for about 2 weeks now but better late than never..

No need to write more here, just go on over to for all your performance based internet marketing needs

This is just in the early stages, expect to see it grow over time. Also, I think I will be migrating this blog over to another domain over the next month and instead branding my name as an internet marketer (don't want my personal blog representing my business now do i? )

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Just some funny videos worth posting, dont mind me today

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Well it looks like a finely have a logo for my business.. Or at least something that is close enough to a logo that will do for now that I can show off.

Without further explanation, here it is:

So what do you think.. You think this is appears alright? do you like the style? what's good and what's bad?

Now expect to see updated in the next week or so with content and a theme that suits this logo especially as my supervisor for Co-op is coming over to see what I've done on Thursday, so i'm forced to have something presentable ready for him

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Ok, the title may eek of marketing hype, you know.. a natural by product of listening to Jay Abraham, which I might add; if you like money and you don't currently have some of his material, you are stupid.

Anyway, enough of that, because I discovered a secret so powerful, yet so obvious that it has the potential to save me over $3AUD a day, each and every day and it works without fail, every time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

That's right, I think I may have stumbled upon the holy grail of producing absolutely perfect Ice Coffee using nothing more than every day household appliances.

In fact, its so simple you'll be kicking yourself that you hadn't thought of it before, because it relies on *drum roll*, Frozen Coffee Blocks!

All you do is prepare a jug of coffee (freshly ground is recommended, it really does add to the quality), pour the liquid into an empty ice-block tray, add sugar to taste (I like to have about 1 teaspoon worth of sugar for every 'cup' of coffee) and leave it to freeze.

Then whenever you feel like Ice Coffee, put the 'coffee cubes' into your blender, fill it with milk (I like to fill the milk up to where the ice blocks were, so they're 'just' floating), add about a spoon full of cream (does add to the flavour and thickness, but not required), add any more sugar to taste (I like to add about another 2 teaspoons, but you'd probably be better adding the sugar originally when you brew the coffee) and blend till you hear no more crunching.

Now just sit back, relax and enjoy Ice Coffee thats so good, its even better than what you can buy at the shops, plus its FREE!

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Sorry I haven't posted for awhile, I guess I've just been busy sorting out recruitment for AIESEC (we recruited 89 people on Wednesday and 70 people on Thursday in just 4 hours a day!) so I haven't had time to post much.

Anyway, I been meaning to write a post about.. attractiveness.. Yep thats right, how fucken little the usual bullshit people get hung up on matters..

Firstly, from the normal psychological perspective attractiveness is a function of perceived status, along with biological indicators such as pupil dilation.. yep, thats why 'romantic candlelight' works so much better; because studies have shown people will rate people with dilated pupils as significantly more attractive (also makes you wonder why most pubs / clubs dim the lights..).. so really, when you think about it, you're probably better of meeting your 'date' in a low light environment than spending those 2 hours putting on makeup...

And then theres my favorite part, the covert hypnosis part.. Oh yeah.. thats right, I couldn't possibly write a blog post without mentioning covert hypnosis at least once could I? Well.. To the point, there a numerous techniques you could use to make yourself appear so much more attractive in the other persons eyes using NLP, its actually quite scarily easy..

While I don't want to make this blog all about concrete techniques, because this isn't meant to teach people NLP.. yet for those of you that know a little about it, think of how easy it would be to get someone of the opposite sex's criteria and anchor them to yourself? think of how easy it would be to tell a story about a friend of yours, how he/she falls in love all the time and fill it with presumptions and embedded commands using the right vocal intonation and tempo? And without even going into the literally thousands of rapport techniques out there, imagine if you were to demonstrate how submodalities can be used to amplify good feelings and anchored it to your smile?.. hmm.. nah.. that couldn't possibly work..

So really, does perceived attractiveness even matter knowing that its all subtle influence that affects how we fall in love with people and how attracted we are to them? That said, I got the inspiration to write this post based on the below video.. enjoy it

Lastly, I'm not some kinda 'perfect' not-shallow guy that thinks personality comes above everything else because I'm not. I like attractive girls and I'm not afraid to admit it, BUT with that in mind, I've discovered how people grow on me.. in that instead of looking at a girl and going "she's hot" I'll think "yeah, she's ok" and then maybe after I've gotten to know her for awhile and noticed what we have in common I'll go "she's hot". So think about it for a moment, attractiveness is very relative, its heavily influenced by how closely your personalities match and easily influencable psychological factors.

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I don't think theres anything I could say that would do this Ad justice, so without further ado, enjoy

So, who else is looking forward to 'adult life'; settling down and enjoying the trials, tribulations and responsibilities that come with starting a family? Nah fuck that, I'm saving the $500,000+ and buying a Lamborghini instead.

P.S.

While not as good as the previous Ad, since we're on the topic of awesome ads, I had to add this one as well:

Hmm, usually I absolutely detest having to meet a girlfriends family, gaining rapport with and sweet talking her folks, then again... I could imagine imagine that being relatively easy in this case, pity the chicks fairly average though.

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Ok, i'll get back to posting my own stuff soon, but then again, your probably getting more value while i'm posting someone elses

Well done rapid induction here (and its funny to see one fat white guy hypnotist surrounded by asians):

Another cool video, this time it puts a nice spin on the idea that 'non believers' are 'immoral':

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I don't think I need to say anything else here, Derren Brown is a mentalist who uses a lot of covert hypnosis and NLP to do his mind tricks.

While he arguably chooses subjects that are more suggestible, its none the less a good watch to see what you can do when you learn these skills Now... even if you choose to do nothing else other than watch these first few videos; the added realization of what can actually be done will mean you'll surely look back and thank yourself you took the time to watch them

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I tried searching for petes pad on google and to my surprise, despite having done absolutely no promotion for this blog this site appears #1. Which is a fair effort I think since the search shows a number of well made popular sites that have been around for awhile.

I guess this just goes to show that whatever you write on the internet is easily findable even if you do absolutely no promotion or you don't think anyone links to you, it will be found.

So what does this mean for me? absolutely nothing, I've set this blog up so that it will naturally rank well on google as time goes by (google doesnt trust new domain names so its surprising just how quickly I ranked.. ) because I figure if I'm going to bother writing something, it may as well be available to those that care... And naturally, being the capitalistic economics studying bastard I am, maybe make a nice little side income if this ever gets a bit of traffic.
Anyway if you haven't registered yourname.com yet, you really should go ahead and do it now because there's nothing that would be more annoying than finding some other assholes already taken your name. Its also pretty cheap so it doesn't really matter if you plan to use it now or not.

I've used godaddy.com to register this domain, and you can too for $6.95USD per anum if you use this coupon code BigAlRap (of if its expired, just google for godaddy promotion code)
While I'm at it, I should point out that this site (along with and any others that I plan to setup as part of my internet marketing business) is hosted on https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ because they're reliable, fast and pretty fucken cheap, so far they've cost me $2.5 over 3 months because you only pay for what you use.

Well thats about it for todays random ramblings, I'm not in anyway affiliated with the above services, I simply use them, now if you'd like any help setting up a domain or if you'd like to get a blog up like this one (ad free on yourname.com) then I'm happy to help you out, just give me a bell on msn or something

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So, its about time that I really start posting dirt on myself that people can actually use isn’t it? well, I suppose its the sole reason that whoever actually reads this thing reads it, so without further ado..

I offer you yet another disapointment (yep, i’m really playing hard to get here, forcing you to read as much crap as possible before giving you something worthwhile of blackmail) because despite having gone to an outer eastern suburbs public school, and despite watching our resident speed freak walking around twitching the only drugs I’ve ever taken have been alcohol and caffein, sometimes together (red bull and vodka anyone?) and quite often too much.

Because quite simply I’m about feeling good and using my brain better (ok ok, alcohol is bad I hear you say, I know, yet it feels good to have a few beers with some mates so fuck it) so that the only illicit drug I’ve ever been tempted to try was speed for my year 12 english exam back in high school.. However as my dad (who’s a counsellor and worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor) told me to promise him that if I was going to try any drug that was fine, he wasnt going to stop me but he did want me to promise me that I would never do speed (because it seriously damages the cetral nervous system, wipes a good few years of your life and has a high chance of making you paranoid appearently) that idea got shot down quickly..

Well.. I’ve recently read about a few drugs that range from ‘no known side effects’ to ’safe’ that can have seriouse enhancement qualities to your life (improved mental ability, ability to stay up for 72 hours straight without feeling tired while remaining coherent etc) so I thought I’d discuss them here because I’m seriously considering getting into at least some of the safer ones, and I was curious if anyone has any thoughts on them, or would like to go halfs in an order

Modafinil
“A stimulant that since its launch seven years ago has acquired a
near-mythical reputation for wiring you awake without the jitters,
euphoria and eventual crash that come after caffeine or amphetamines.”

“Modafinil has made it possible to have 48 hours of continuous wakefulness with few, if any, ill effects.”

Piracetam
“Last year a friend took me to hear Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Arkestra as a birthday present. I had just received a bottle of 800 mg tablets of Piracetam. My friend and I each took nine of the tablets (an “attack dose” they call it in the literature) before entering the hall. The music began 30 minutes later. I found myself able to concentrate as never before. I was completely lucid with absolutely no sense of intoxication. For the first time in my life I could hear each individuals horn’s timbre (Sun Ra has about 10 horn players, often all playing massed harmonies.) My friend has worked as a professional saxophone player. He, too, reported extraordinary hearing and concentration abilities. My ears felt as though the were being stimulated from all directions at once, but the feeling was entirely pleasant. I was enthralled.”

Hydergine
“I first tried Hydergine six years ago during a visit to see my Dad at Christmas. He and I started taking 9mg and results were apparent to us both within two days. He was in his 40s, and began to remember events from when he was in his 20s as clearly as if they’d happened yesterday. What was interesting was that the events were nothing outstanding–just ordinary times. In other words, the everyday events had been stored away all these years, it just took some chemical prodding to jog them loose into the conscious mind. I was in my early 20s and had similar memories going back to my childhood years. A unique opportunity had been presented to us to sit down and really share in the joys that our life had brought us. What a gift!”

Vasopressin
“The most immediate result I get from using vasopressin is increased clarity and alertness. I can be logical without the usual speediness associated with caffeine use. After five minutes I’ve noticed that I’m busily accomplishing tasks that I’d been putting off for a week. The duration is about two hours for the energetic feelings. Overall, I feel my short-term memory recall improving over the past two weeks of using vasopressin. It seems that the longer I use it, the more I can rely on my mind to be a portable note pad.” Vasopressin, called “the memory hormone,” is a natural brain peptide, stimulated by acetylcholine and released in the pituitary. It actually helps create, imprint, and store memories, and is essential to remembering. Apparently vasopressin is involved in picking out and chunking together related bits of information from the stream of consciousness, integrating these chunks into coherent structures, and then “imprinting” these images or concepts into long-term memory by transforming electrical impulses into complex proteins that contain memories and are stored away in the brain. The act of remembering the stored information is also mediated by vasopressin.

Centrophenoxine
Centrophenoxine is an intelligence booster and also an effective anti-aging therapy. It has been shown to cause improvements in various aspects of memory function and a 30% increase in lifespan of laboratory animals.

(more to be added to this list as I continue research)

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So to me at least, Piracetam seems like the best choice to start with at least, and I really want to get hold of some.. in fact its also not too bad price wise so if anyone wants to go parts in my first order to try it out, give me a yell.. you can get it here btw: http://www.antiaging-systems.com/iasstore/acatalog/piracetam.html

Sources:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925391.300
http://www.fiu.edu/%7Emizrachs/nootropics.html
http://members.aol.com/profchm/piracetam.html
http://www.hoboes.com/

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You know, I was sitting here about to write this post about how I just cant be fucked doing anything at the moment as a way of getting started getting some stuff done.. because its hard to procrastinate talking about yourself, and it would serve as a good bit of momentum to get going..
But then again I've procrastinated myself out of using a quick NLP pattern to end my procrastination so you never know..
Anyway, the problem is I just cant write a 'boo hoo' post without realizing that its actually just a series of language patterns that will install that same thing in the reader which definately isnt my intention..
Its like, I'm writing something like "you know when you just cant be fucked doing anything, and whenever you think of something to do that could have been fun.. this part of you, almost automatically just comes along and sedates you into even more procrastination now, you know what I mean?", and I realize thats just going to set you up to remember a time like that and especially if you agree with what I've been saying so far you would start finding yourself experiencing that same state..
So what the fuck is the point of this post?
Well, not a lot, its one of those "I cant just write one line that says I really cant be fucked doing anything right now" posts that somehow evolves into having a point, and that is that next time you find yourself feeling like you cant be fucked, maybe ask yourself who you've been talking to and what you've been reading over the past few days.. because depressed people are some of the best covert hypnotists out there and pretty soon if you listen to them you will find yourself thinking like they do.

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Well its been a bit of a busy period because I've been trying to get a lot of things sorted so I havent written up some of the stuff here that I've been planning on.
Anyway, if you've ever come to this blog before you've probably noticed this site now has a new theme! Sure, I liked the old theme but it just wasnt 'me', it just didnt project what I want to project and when I was browsing istockphotos to see if there was anything I could use for my businesses logo I came across an awesome vector (what you now see in a slight modified form in the header of this page) so I plonked it into the previous theme and to my dismay it just didnt quite work.
I was too hooked on this image to give up that easily though, so I went searching for wordpress (the software this blog runs on) themes and found rin and modified a bunch of things until you have what your seeing now.
However I had gotten started, and on my way looking for a suitable theme I had found a bunch of other plugins to extend the sites functionality such as the ability to add any posts on this blog to popular social bookmarking websites.. I'm new to this whole blogging theme, but I know one thing for certain, theres a lot of marketing potential distributing content through these networks.
Now along with a few minor things you wont notice working behind the scenes (such as things being more optimized and running smoother) I've implemented 'Ajax' in this site.. in normal english that means you click on a link and it will load things faster, and without reloading the page go ahead and try it, it works for all pages (except theres a few issues currently with the search results.. and I have had to temporarily disable tagging because it didnt work with the tags for each post either.. )
In other, and ultimately much more important news, I got my work experience for next year! which means I dont have any lectures or tutes for another 15 or so months... instead as of mid march I will be focussing solely on developing , my online marketing business.
I'm excited to be given the go ahead by the university to take on this challenge, yet I'm also a little daunted by it... My internal dialogue has been going crazy with 'will I actually make money?', 'Is it really possible?' and 'can I actually do it?', yet ultimately I know there are people that have made a lot of money doing this, I know I can do the same if I give it everything I have.
Now all I need is a good logo.. I've been playing around with a few designs and I might post them up to get a bit of feedback.. but so far nothing has 'it', nothing is ground breaking..

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So that wonderful substance that we all worship during exam time, conference or just a big night out called Red Bull actually has side effects and I discovered some of them (I'm sure the others will hit me when I'm thirty, but who cares, its not like theres life beyond 30 anyway so i'll get over it).
I've always been the guy to have 2-3 cans of Red Bull right before an exam, or for the last AIESEC conference I brought 6 cans to keep me going and by now I've noticed that whenever I drink a bit of it my short term memory is seriously fucked..
Anyway..It does have its side effects because for example during my Price Theory exam, I spent 20 minutes looking at a simple question, knowing I knew how to do it yet the answer still remained completely blank.. or during the last AIESEC conference (ok.. i did have 4 of them by then.. but still..!) I thought of something cool to say when it would be my turn to talk, yet I kept forgetting it, and having to rephrase it in my mind..
Sure it may or may not be the Red Bull, but by now a pattern has been emerging, so for those of you that have been telling me its a bad idea.. your probably right.
Conclusion... Red Bull isn't the magic cure all that every Uni student thinks it is, so the bottom line is drink in moderation (yeah right.. like thats going to happen).. ok, be aware that it may fuck with your short term memory, so factor that in when cramming or trying to have an intelligent conversation.

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Well since it seems that every man and his dog is writing their own blog I figured I may as well hop on the bandwagon and start one myself, you know, for anyone that can be bothered reading my crazy thoughts on things, or for anyone that wants to find an abundance of dirt on me without going to the trouble of just asking one of my friends.

So you know, just in case I ever want to enter politics and my opponents are running short of arguments, I thought I’d be charitable and start an easily searchable achieve of things I’ve done and my opinion on things in case they need some dirt.

Anyway, since your still reading this, this ‘blog’ doesn’t really have any particular purpose other than I realized that the domain name PeterSandersen.com was still available so I might as well put something on it.

I’m aiming to update this blog once a week with everything from happenings in my personal life, things related to AIESEC (which is a student organization that among other things is about leadership that I’ve joined), various marketing ideas, a bit of stuff on NLP and Hypnosis, general mind fucks, my political/philosophical/ethical point of view on a number of things and lastly how my own online marketing business is fairing… However for the last point your better of heading to (actually don’t, its just experimenting with designs at the moment.. I’ll make a post when its done..) to get more up to date news.

Till next time I decide to write something, hope you enjoy the design, take care and if you have any constructive feedback about the design or any aspect of this blog, please feel free to let me know

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Well, the other day one of my friends asked me if I didn't think it was questionable to study persuasion because some people might see me as someone that's manipulative and only interested in my own personal gain..

And yes, thats a pretty negative frame to put over wanting to learn how the mind works, yet I also think its a good question so I'll discuss it in this post; are there ethical ramifications to studying persuasion?
And absolutely, as you learn more and more about how the mind operates and how to influence it you come across increasing opportunities that challenge your ethics.

So to discuss this further, lets begin by agreeing that we as humans are always influencing each other whether consciously or unconsciously; you see a person telling a kid "don't step in the puddle" and the kid steps in the puddle because his or her brain hasn't yet developed to a point that it can process negation..
And as you may also have noticed, people tend to mirror each others physical movements, and as they enter 'rapport' will tend to reflect each others beliefs and behaviors.

Now I can certainly attest to this, after I've been around one group of people for awhile I tend to pick up their behaviors, and I'll tend to find myself using words or phrases that are common in this group. Like, one of my mates would always say "I reckon" and I noticed that after having been around him for a bit I'd start using it more myself, and as I became aware of this I started playing around with it and noticed that when I'd package statements around "I reckon" (e.g. "I reckon its time for some food, don't you Jason?) it would not only increase rapport; he'd tend to nod in agreement and follow along more than he normally would as well.

I could go on and on with examples but I'm sure you get the point by now, that we as human beings are continuesly influencing each other, even without our conscious intent to do so and its really what NLP has modeled, because consciously choosing to persuade or influence someone in one direction must ultimately be based on the way the unconscious naturally picks up things in order to work.

So my question to you is, how can someone call themselves ethical if they don't have the skills to be 'unethical' and get away with it? Think about it for a moment; if you choose to be nice to someone just because you knew they could kick your arse does that make you a nice person? Even if your not consciously making this choice, saying your ethical when you know you cant actually get away with doing something unethical isn't really that honest now, is it?

Think about it again, being ethical is making a choice that is congruent within your system of values, if you don't actually have a 'real choice' then you are simply following the path of least resistance rather than making a choice. So with this in mind one can wonder for how many people is acting ethically (or, to put it differently, acting within the limits of acceptable behavior that they've been brought up with) just a bonus that allows them to feel good about themselves and not something that they would necessarily 'choose' to do given that 'choice'.

Ultimately with this in mind, I believe people cant honestly classify themselves as being ethical unless they are repeatedly presented with opportunities were there is a real reward by being 'unethical' and there is negligible risk to them and they consistently choose to act within their values, now this naturally brings up the question of 'what is ethics'?

To begin with ethics are subjective, different religions present models of ethics that are mutually exclusive such that while one might think of people like you and I as model citizens (hey, there has to be one out there? common..) others believe we're damned to the fires of hell for eternity just because we don't share their model of reality and its the same with different cultures; the eskimos would actually 'lend' out their wifes if a friend was going on a snow trip and I can assure you it wasn't just for conversation and help preparing meals...
While in some countries if a women is raped she can be charged and executed.. Take a moment to really reflect on this; there are countries were if a girl is even suspected of having a relationship or refuses to accept her family arranged marriage there are people out there that will consider it ethical to kill or torture her in the name of their family honour.

So that the more you think about ethics, the more it must be becoming increasingly obvious that its completely relative, and not only is it relative and contradictory across cultures; its programmed into you from birth by your parents, its programmed into you as you watch TV, as you talk to your friends and even as subtly as when without paying attention you unconsciously overhear conversations.
Now isn't this constant yet subtle indoctrination manipulation at its highest level?

In fact, you can stop and ask yourself; is it acceptable within your 'ethics' to know that the model you use to judge whether things are right or wrong, the model you'll both try to export to others and use to judge them by is not even your own, its the result of other peoples subjective experiences and beliefs that you have absorbed since birth. No really, stop and ask yourself whether this is OK? Is it?

To me personally, I cant find it ethical to not understand where the ethics I have, have come from; its understanding how the human mind and how its influenced that allows me to unwrap how my own beliefs have been shaped so that I can really examine what it is I believe and decide what is right for me, just like I encourage you to do the same because whats right for me isn't necessarily right for you, and its up to you to find this out.

Essentially I'm not saying you need to understand influence to be an ethical human being because that would be enforcing my model of reality onto you, instead I encourage you to really look at the areas of your beliefs that are just a product of other people covertly exerting their influence on you and to realize that we as humans naturally influence each other and its through learning how this works that you can break free of other peoples ideas and ideals and make choices in your life.

So all this said, I have a confession to make, and that is that when someone tells me theres something that makes them feel bad; theres nothing I enjoy more than using the most downright manipulative technique to influence them to see things differently and feel good. Because helping someone to change their life for the better is influence too despite many people only seeing negative connotations to that word.

I'll leave you with this question; who's using you to export their values and is the person that spends their life telling other people how to lead theirs normally the person that leads this life? So just be yourself and except that others are being themselves too, and that is a good thing.

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I don't think I need to say anything else here, Derren Brown is a mentalist who uses a lot of covert hypnosis and NLP to do his mind tricks.

While he arguably chooses subjects that are more suggestible, its none the less a good watch to see what you can do when you learn these skills Now... even if you choose to do nothing else other than watch these first few videos; the added realization of what can actually be done will mean you'll surely look back and thank yourself you took the time to watch them

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Ok, i'll get back to posting my own stuff soon, but then again, your probably getting more value while i'm posting someone elses

Well done rapid induction here (and its funny to see one fat white guy hypnotist surrounded by asians):

Another cool video, this time it puts a nice spin on the idea that 'non believers' are 'immoral':

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