C'mon, Google: Allow for better review of AdSense banning

This is probably an issue I should have addressed ten or so years ago.  It angered me then but now, it's absolutely infuriating.  Not that I actually expect anything proactive to be done, of course.  But hey, avalanches start with one pebble rolling into places that a pebble doesn't belong.  So who knows?

It's about Google's AdSense program.  And how it's impossible to regain monetization if you so much as look at a YouTube video the wrong way.

For a few years this blog took part in the AdSense program.  And it made a little bit of money.  Enough that I used it to purchase my first iPad.  AdSense was very easy to implement and it really livened up the blog, which was the main reason I wanted to take part in it.

So it was a pretty good relationship, I thought.

And then, a little over a decade ago, my AdSense account was disabled.

I know exactly how it happened, too.  Because it was eventually admitted to me.

I had (emphasis on "had") a friend who earnestly believed that he/she was doing me a favor, when they repeatedly reloaded this blog wherever they happened to be, whether at home or at work or wherever.  I had no idea this was happening.  If I had, I would have absolutely requested that they stop.

That's why I was banned from AdSense.  Because of a single third party's misbehavior.

It could have happened to anyone.  It could happen to you, if someone is holding a grudge against you and wants to very easily cut off a source of potentially sizable income.

Well, I appealed the disabling.  It was rejected.  And that's it.  There is no appealing anymore.  Google tosses your @$$ out to the curb.  It's decision is final.  And creating a new AdSense account is not allowed.

This should not be.

There are a myriad of reasons and many of them ridiculous why a person using Google could be demonetized (or worse, have their content deleted completely).  It does no one... including Google... any good.  It chokes off the Internet from being a place where information is available and flows freely across an impartial playing field.  From a business standpoint banning users from AdSense for capricious and frivolous activity only drives those users to other competing advertising services.  Those aren't much of a threat, right now.  But their virtual circulations are growing.  And it would not be surprising if ten years from now they are the ones who are reaping the rewards that come with giving content creators reasonable carte blanche, without fear of reprisal or negligent administration.

In the course of the past few months this blog has been gaining back a loyal readership that hasn't been had since before I walked away from blogging for the better part of three years, during which I traveled across America in a journey of self-discovery.  It would be good to have AdSense again, if for no other reason than to have ads on display, for sake of aesthetics.  It would be good to have it back period, it having been disabled for activity which was not the fault at all of the publisher himself.

Google execs, I doubt you will read this.  But I'm not going to let this continue without expressing my ire and frustration about your abominable banning policies.  They need to be and should be examined anew and... I believe so anyway... be revised.  Because as things are now and have been for some time, the banning policies are blatantly unfair to many of those who are generating fresh material on a constant basis.

You are not gaining anything by exiling content creators from using your platform to earn a little cash not just for them, but for yourself.

If anyone at Google is reading this and wishes to contact me about this, I invite them to write to me at theknightshift@gmail.com.  I would be very appreciative of that effort and dialoguing with you about this.  And it probably should go without saying that I would also appreciate a review of my own AdSense account, and be told in no uncertain terms why it was banned.  I would be so bold as to suggest that many if not most users who have been banned deserve a proper hearing.  But that's what needs to happen.

Content creators should not be penalized for the miscreant actions of a third party acting inappropriately.

Come on Google, don't do evil.  Don't let bad people get away with hurting the good ones.

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U.S. economy in peril if Asian countries won't buy debt

"Armageddon" is the word that Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson says the United States faces for its economy if countries like Japan and China stop purchasing American debt.

"If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent," he said. "It's not a question of the economy. It's a question of who will lend us the money if they don't. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation where we're totally dependent on those two countries. It's crazy."

(snip)

"We're in for some real rough sledding," he said. "I really do think the recession is at least temporarily over. But we haven't addressed so many of our problems and we are borrowing so much money that we can't possibly pay it back, unless the Chinese and Japanese buy our bonds."

Mash down here for more observations from Mr. Robertson.

I'm still wog-boggled about the idea of basing a national economy, even partially, on the selling of that country's debt.

How did that happen?

Nothing good can possibly come of it.

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Broke states turn to exploiting seat belts for fast cash

I've never liked mandatory seat belt laws. For one thing, it should be a matter of personal preference whether one chooses to wear a seat belt or not. In my mind such legislation embodies all the worst aspects of the "nanny state". I understand that statistically, seat belts do tend to save lives. But I have also known plenty of people for whom seat belts are physically uncomfortable, because of medical conditions or something similar. My grandmother, f'rinstance. Whenever she got into a car she simply looped the belt around her shoulder and rode like that (something that I'll admit to doing every so often as well :-)

And then there are those who have argued that seat belt laws have nothing to do with safety at all: that they are designed to be reliable revenue streams for the states that have them. That case is certainly bolstered by the number of states that want to empower law enforcement officers to pull over drivers simply for not wearing seat belts. And this time the various governors and other officials are admitting that it's because their states "don't have enough money".

(If this is going on in the state of Washington I suppose that if you don't buckle up the state can also take your DNA as a consequence.)

The only other observation that I know to make from this, is that government at all levels is running out of funding. The entire system is beginning to buckle beneath its own weight and simply spending and looking for ways to maintain that spending, isn't going to maintain it for much longer. Sooner than later, it's gonna come crashing down.

Maybe it'll be a good thing. We can start fresh and clean again. And do away with so many of these laws that have nothing at all to do with protecting us and our rights. Scrapping the seat belt laws would be a good start...

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Where's the hope?! Obama evokes fear if "stimulus" isn't passed

Remember all that talk of "hope and change" during the past election cycle? What happened to it? Because now President Barack Obama is sounding like the dire opposite of Franklin Roosevelt, warning that if the "stimulus" bill isn't passed...

"This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

Not even three weeks into the job and the man's already done did a "malaise speech".

Dear President Obama: if you seriously want to stimulate the economy across the board, you cannot do it with more spending! That might seem to buy some time in the short term, but what is really needed is to cut taxes and CUT SPENDING!

That may not win Obama any early accolades, but posterity would ultimately judge him to be a wise president if he were to adopt such a sober-minded fiscal policy.

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Lest anyone believe this blog will be soft on Obama...

Ever since this blog began five years ago, I have very often broken bad on George W. Bush. Because he has consistently proven himself to have been the worst President of the modern era (and quite possibly the worst ever). There have been a few times when I have not hesitated to praise his actions, but those have been few and far between. It will be decades before the damage that he has done to America can be fully repaired, if at all.

But don't think that The Knight Shift is going to be a safe harbor for pro-Obama sentiment either...

This blog and the admittedly off-kilter guy behind it do not cotton to any ideology. If anyone enters my dojo with the sad notion that I should admire or fear them because they are a self-styled "conservative" or "liberal", then they are wrong... and I won't hesitate to land them square on their ass for their assumed bravura. People can have conservative or liberal opinions about a given issue, but to deride others as blanket "conservative" or "liberal" is to not give those people the respect that they deserve and to give such a label to one's entire identity is the acme of shallowness.

So Bush is finally going away, and it can't come a moment too soon. How much confidence do I have with incoming Barack Obama? If this next story is any indication: not much at all.

According to a video that Obama had posted on YouTube, as part of "economic stimulus" he wants to create three million new jobs, with 80% of those being in the private sector.

But that translates into 600,000 jobs that will be in government. In other words: more bureaucrats. What these new employees on the federal dole will be doing that government employees are not already busy with, I haven't a clue. And I would be remiss if I did not mention that no nation in history ever created prosperity for itself by increasing the size and scope of its own government. The George W. Bush years alone proved that.

What I'd love to know even more though, is how exactly does Obama believe he can create 2,400,000 employed positions in the private labor force? The most robust way that I can recall that ever being possibly done, is for there to be wartime conditions like World War II, when vast segments of the population went to work for defense contractors.

There is only one way that Barack Obama can help create economic growth and recovery for America's finances: cut taxes - especially slashing income taxes and corporate taxes so as to encourage more domestic industry - and cut spending. Not just one and not just the other, but both together.

If Barack Obama does that, he will truly go down in history as one of the greatest American Presidents of all time.

We'll see what happens, over the next four years or eight...

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