The iPad: Spectacular or Craptacular?

Part 2:  My interest in the iPad is for the eBook technology, of course. The present eBook readers so far just replicate a paper book electronically. Plus most readers don’t take advantage of images and other playback formats. The Kindle is particularly guilty of this and partly this is a function of price point. The iPad is far more satisfactory in terms of a multimedia experience; the iPad can add sounds and beautiful color graphics that put the Kindle to shame. If I wanted a dedicated eBook reader I want the iPad, not the Kindle. However, at $499 I really don’t want the iPad eBook reader nor is there an overwhelming reason to want to one to replace a good old-fashioned books that could be had for all of $20. Give me a reason and a damn good one! Oh, I know it can do more than the average reader but still not more than a laptop. Make me want an iPad to pay that amount and want to lug it around!
First and foremost, we need to take advantage of the hardware and the technology. In others words, do not replicate thousand-year old technology such as paper books. Books are tactile and so is the touch screen on the iPad. Okay, I get it but I want more! I want to rethink how we read. More importantly, we have to rethink the novel experience and become less serial in our approach to the entire reading experience.

Pluses:

• Nice, sleek design
• Beautiful screen
• It’s all touch baby!
• It’s from Apple

Minuses:

• It’s Unfortunate Name (ouch!)
• Limited storage
• Expensive
• Size
• No new functionality
• No new eBook features

Bottom line: I still don’t have an overwhelming urge to say “Oh my Gawd, I got to have it!”

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download for the iPad, Kindle, Sony, BlackBerry, iPhone ebook Readers:

WWW.iPADeBOOK.ORG
WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI
WWW.iPhone-Novel.com
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iPad: Only a Mac Fanboys Reader

This is my first blog of the year and I find myself once again returning to the issue of the future of publishing. I watched the Apple iPad announcement today in its entirety with great interest as an author of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot.  Is the iPad a game changer? No, I’m not a Mac fanboy, so to me the iPad is too expensive and there is not enough new functionality to get me really excited. I just keep thinking about how the entire concept of eBooks needs to evolve. The problem with most PC’s including Apples is that most computers are basically digital replacements for an analog world including the iPad. Keyboards and monitors in essence replace paper. I am old enough to remember when my job was entirely paper based; I didn’t have a personal computer during my first job from college. We moved paper from one desk to another and we had secretaries to type our important reports using dedicated word processors. Calculations were done on calculators. PC’s were to be a revolution but PC’s just allow us to create more paper faster but metaphorically it’s still paper!

My interest in the iPad is for the eBook technology, of course. The present eBook readers so far just replicate a paper book electronically. Plus most readers don’t take advantage of images and other playback formats. The Kindle is particularly guilty of this and partly this is a function of price point. The iPad is far more satisfactory in terms of a multimedia experience; the iPad can add sounds and beautiful color graphics that put the Kindle to shame. If I wanted a dedicated eBook reader I want the iPad, not the Kindle. However, at $499 I really don’t want the iPad eBook reader nor is there an overwhelming reason to want to one to replace a good old-fashioned books that could be had for all of $20. Give me a reason and a damn good one! Oh, I know it can do more than the average reader but still not more than a laptop. Make me want an iPad to pay that amount and want to lug it around!
First and foremost, we need to take advantage of the hardware and the technology. In others words, do not replicate thousand-year old technology such as paper books. Books are tactile and so is the touch screen on the iPad. Okay, I get it but I want more! I want to rethink how we read. More importantly, we have to rethink the novel experience and become less serial in our approach to the entire reading experience. I’ll have more on this in a later blog.

Bottom line:  I don’t have the overwhelming urge to say “Oh my Gawd, I got to have it!”

PS:  I want to extend my condolences to Tee Morris and his family regarding their recent loss.  Tee is one of the podcasting pioneers involved with Podiobooks and is truly one of the good guys in the industry.  I have to say when it comes to a loss of this magnitude words do fail me.

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download for the iPad, Kindle, Sony, BlackBerry, iPhone ebook Readers:

WWW.iPADeBOOK.ORG
WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI
WWW.iPhone-Novel.com
Technorati Profile

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release

Legacy Publishers and Murdoch Nonsense on the Road to Irrelevancy

Below is a CNN article regarding more News Corp nonsense (I actually knew Rupert Murdoch’s company name from a Simpsons episode when Homer almost accidentally bought the stock). Just reading this stupidity, well it just tells you how irrelevant and desperate the traditional publishing industry has become because of the Internet.
CNN) — In a nod to the growing debate on free access to news stories on the Web, Google has updated options to help news organizations limit access. The move comes after revelations that Microsoft has been in talks with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and other publishers to de-list from Google in return for payments to index on the company’s rival search engine, Bing.
In recent months, Murdoch has repeatedly threatened to pull his company’s news Web sites — which include the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and the Australian — from Google and put company sites that are currently free behind a pay wall. Google has updated a program on Google Search to allow publishers to limit users to no more than five page views per day without registering or subscribing to the news site. “If you’re a Google user, this means that you may start to see a registration page after you’ve clicked through to more than five articles on the Web site,” wrote Josh Cohen, senior business product manager, on Google News Blog on Tuesday.
“As newspapers consider charging for access to their online content, some publishers have asked: Should we put up pay walls or keep our articles in Google News and Google Search?” Cohen wrote. “In fact, they can do both — the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Murdoch and other newspaper publishers have complained that Google is profiting unfairly from their content while many newspapers are struggling to survive.

Jackson’s This is it – No it Isn’t

With the release of the late Michael Jackson’s “This is It” movie I felt it was time to revisit a blog I wrote about a disturbing trend in American culture that continues with the release of the movie:

enabler– one that enables another to achieve an end ; especially : one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior (Definition from Merriam-Webster)

The publicity stemming around Michael Jackson’s memorial service today at the Staples Center forced me to acknowledge MJ’s fans enabling ways in my column today. Michael Jackson always left me bemused by his incredible talent, his strange behavior and his fans blind acceptance of all things Michael. And make no mistake about it but the adoring fans did enable Michael Jackson’s bizarre behavior. Their blind acceptance of Michael Jackson enabled his bizarre behavior and hastened his very death. Had the fans reacted early on in his career in repulsion to MJ’s bizarre self-mutilation with numerous plastic surgeries, germaphobic behavior, skin bleaching, his predilection for young boys perhaps Michael Jackson would have tempered his behavior and would not have been so deviant later on in his life. But if you are an enabler and accepting of bad behavior it is not surprising that the aberrant behavior often spirals into new and ever more grotesque and destructive gyrations.

To assume that enabling is a one way street is also wrong. Fans and sycophants, such as the Reverend Al Sharpton, took advantage of Michael Jackson’s foibles while seemingly championing his cause. In general, the enabler or codependent wants to feel needed and enabling validates their own existence or in some instances serves their own selfish goals such as a hefty contribution to one’s church. Moreover, enablers don’t want to change the dependent behavior nor do they want to participate in the exercise of self-sacrifice.

Fan’s often argue that Michael Jackson’s excesses were the idiosyncratic behavior of an eccentric musical genius as though being a genius exonerates you from acknowledging the norms of a society. I’m sorry, Einstein and Mozart were geniuses, Michael Jackson was just a very talented entertainer, perhaps the best of his generation but he was still just an entertainer. Okay, Einstein married his cousin and he did have that wild hair style yet he didn’t go off the deep-end but, in fact, Einstein became a great humanist in his later years long after his intellectual skills had peaked. Michael Jackson could have done the same, after all he had the following but instead he just sung deeper and deeper into his drug induced haze enabled by an adoring fan base that could see no wrong in their self-proclaimed king of pop. For one to suggest otherwise one would have to incur shrill, vituperative rebuttals from those very same adoring fan base.

But Michael Jackson is just the tip of the American enabling iceberg. Americans are engaging in enabling like they never had before. Obesity runs rampant as children and later the morbidly obese adults are enabled by numerous family members. When somebody weighs close to half a ton you know somebody is diligently shopping, buying and shoveling a never ending supply of food into the obese shut-ins mouth. It’s so easy to say to someone here eat this and watch television, it’s not your fault your overweight and then pass off the enabling as love! You can weigh in pounds their enabling love!

Moreover, American enabling has a far darker side than just Michael Jackson and obesity, just witness the drug cartel wars that plaque Mexico. What the hell does that have to do with enabling you may ask? Any fool can argue that the failed political and judicial systems of Mexico are the root cause of the drug violence but our drug habits and the ensuing money enable this corruption. Without the billions of American drug dollars you can’t buy a Mexican judge nor can you corrupt a local politician or police chief. Yet we smoke our pot as though there is no consequence to our seemingly benign but cool drug usage and go into instant denial when somebody has the temerity to suggest otherwise. In any case, a successful war on drugs is an impossibility when so many of our fellow Americans are collaborating with the enemy, enabling the enemy so to speak. (By the way, the libertarian in me says legalize the dope to take away the corrupting influence of the drug money while the social conscious part of me recognizes the vast pitfalls of what legalizing drugs will do to an addictive personality.)

The enabling and denials don’t end there. Our love of cheap oil, of course, enables all sorts of horrendous behavior in the Middle East. Without our oil dollars to fuel a building boom in Saudi Arabia Osama Bin Laden would never have the money to fund the Taliban and 9/11. Instead of selling the rope to hang ourselves, as the communists had hoped, we instead send oil dollars to fuel the terrorist engines. Why? Because we don’t want to, or have the willpower, to kick the SUV habit no matter how many polar caps we may melt in the process. Enablers have a tough time in making the hard decisions for themselves and the others they enable.

Furthermore, American dollars funding abhorrent terrorist behavior is nothing new for this country. For years Irish-Americans supported the activities of the IRA while Cuban Americans continue to funnel much needed dollars to Cuban relatives and into Castro’s failed regime. By golly, enabling is an American tradition just like apple pie!

I don’t expect this to change any time soon nor do I expect our greatest enablers, our brave politicians, to lead the way out of the land of enabling. So Michael Jackson rest in peace, you’re sad destiny was determined by your own neuroses and your enablers alike! What a depressing day and such a waste of a great talent but not surprising when your paramount interest is just to be entertained!

Erik John Bertel

I know this is tacky but speaking of enabling try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:
WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM
WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI
WWW.iPhone-Novel.com
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Help Windows 7 Ate My Vista Twitter Laptop

Okay, from the title as you can guess this is going to be a cautionary tale, one you should perhaps heed. I should know better about being bleeding edge but last night I did something really, really stupid: I made the dreadful mistake of installing Windows 7 on perfectly good Compaq Vista laptop. It was so shiny and new I just had to take a peek and I had a perfectly good candidate to try the new release. Now I should tell you that I have two machines running Vista, that much maligned operating system that I have never had a serious problem with.

Wait, that can’t be right? Doesn’t Vista blow as per the Internet and popular media? No, if you threw enough memory I found it to be the best performing Windows to date (back off Mac boys) and I never experienced a BSD to date that I can recall on the almost two year old Quad processor desktop. Okay, the laptop had a couple of weird BSDs with the closing of its lid but those disappeared after an update and it too has also been running great.

Anyway I got my Windows 7 CD yesterday and for kicks and giggles I sacrificed my new HP Compaq CQ60-420 that ran Vista for the install. That wasn’t a critical production machine, I use it mostly for Word, Twitter and Bing searches,  so I didn’t give a second thought about the decision. After all, I knew I could lose everything on the laptop and still survive using my desktop. I popped it into the DVD drive and I answered three question and we off to the install. This was not a wipe and clean install but a true upgrade and I did have apps and data on the laptop. The upgrade took two and half hours with 3 reboots, no big deal and little interaction on my part other than waiting for a pot to boil. It started up after the third reboot and all looked well as I brought up a number of key applications including IE and Firefox. So far so good, right?

With my laptop I like to use a second external monitor and I noticed that I didn’t have two separate screens going and that the external monitor was just a mirror of the laptop. I had already created a scheme to support two monitors and I blithely right click the desktop to get to my scheme. Opps! New dialog box and worse none of my schemes made it through the upgrade. In fact Windows 7 had no clue what external monitor I had attached. Not a good sign since I had a very exotic Acer 22 inch LCD monitor attached (that’s a joke, there’s nothing exotic they are just cheap and work). Okay, I’ll tackle that in the morning after all how hard is it to create a new scheme.

Morning came and I booted the laptop up, signed in and went about having my crappy breakfast. I returned to the laptop and it was busily doing something and I was thinking that screwball indexing was it again. No problem, right click on the desktop and let’s create that new monitor scheme. Nothing. Tried again but more nothing. One more click and the desktop faded and a message was given about Windows Explorer having a heart attack. Not good!

Rebooted the computer and more of the same behavior. Yikes! My best guess it’s a video driver issue with the laptop. I went to the HP site and downloaded their Driver Robot. Whoa, not HP’s but some crapware or malware that is guaranteed to mess fubar your PC.  Be sure to go to the HP site and get the new drivers.  Let’s see if that addresses the issue.

So you ask why install Windows 7? It’s now and wow, shiny and new plus I’m in the business. I should add that I am not your average noob when it comes to computers. People who follow or stumble upon the blog know I am also a writer of a science fiction adventure trilogy called Flores Girl. Like most writers with the exception of Rollins and Stephen King, I support myself with a second paying job. In fact, for the past 20 years I have been a computer geek selling, marketing, developing and installing personal computers of the Windows persuasion to thousand of customers.

Besides my main source of income like most authors so I can afford shelter for my family I also wear a marketing hat for my novel. Publishers do less and less for authors and we novice authors really have to pickup the slack. Like most writers I have a novel web site, blog and I create the pages including the art work for everything. I ineffectively use a rendering program called Poser to create the Flores Girl Characters and I have created scenes from the next novel to be released with Sequel to Hell with Heroes. The Quad Core PC I mentioned earlier is my production machine and it does my rendering and runs my Photoshop.

The laptop is used as a portable computer to write the novel. It’s a HP Compaq CQ60-420, an inexpensive but not a cheap laptop. I got a deal for $349 and it replaces my 4 year old Compaq laptop that I used to write. That oldie still runs and is getting a second life with one of the kids so I had high hope for this laptop that is until I installed Windows 7 on it.

I’ll keep you updated with my ongoing travails regarding Windows 7. Hopefully, it’s just a video driver issue and not the beginning of some bizarre computer odyssey. My Ubuntu machine is looking good now and I can hear the Mac fan boys laughing right now!

Update:

10/28 – All is well in the world, just as I was ready to uninstall Windows 7 I did what I should have done right from the start and I went to the HP  site and install an updated video driver for Windows.  Its running fine now and I’ll give you some updates.

10/29 – Oops spoke too soon,  the Windows Explorer bug resurfaced and it continues to crash when it wants.  It runs fast, I just can’t get to the desktop.  Normally I don’t upgrade but stick with the original OS the computer came with which was easy to when XP had its 8 year run.  These are the pitfalls with an upgrade.   I know get a Mac!

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Blogger Comes Clean to the FTC

Okay, I surrender, I give up! I admit to taking… wait a minute why am I feeling guilty?  Isn’t it amusing that the FTC is going after bloggers with $11,000 fines for testimonial advertisements and undisclosed freebies when you consider the sheer volume of misinformation and outright fraud that bombards the air waves of both radio and television never mind the Internet. Let us count the ways the FTC looks the other way when it comes to these numerous assaults to your common sense and wallet:

• Self-help financial gurus and their craptacular seminars
• Credit Reconstruction Services that put you into even bigger hole
• Mortgage Refi Services by the same crooks that got us into this mess in the first place
• Outright Ponzi schemes –  didn’t Bernie Madoff advertise his services?
• Diet ads or supplements of more than dubious value
• Baldness cures-  yikes!
• Male Virility ads for supplements that are not Viagra or Levitra – enuf said buy the good stuff will you!
• Exorbitant Shipping and handling charges on so called free merchandise
• $19.95 doodads – just what the hell is a doodad?- that well, suck! Hey where did I put my Snuggy?
• All sports drinks – hey people it’s mostly water with a disgusting taste and a nauseating color

Why does the FTC look the other way at these media charlatans  while its feels a pressing need to address unethical bloggers?  Because these crooks pay big ad dollars to the corporate media machine to peddle their crap but bloggers, well we kinda of live off the land!  Blogger are basically ma and pa shops with no big bucks and no special interests and hence no big campaign dollars to line the politicos pockets. Okay, I got my novel to sell and the bozo author owes me!  Anyway share with me your favorite worthless product or service that you see on the airwaves or is that cable?

Cheers,

Erik John Bertel

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Flores Girl, the free Sci-Fi Podcast, is over 100,000 Downloads at Podiobooks

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, a Featured Work eBook on Wattpad.com is now over 20,00 reads at Wattpad. Well, the original pdocast is up to 100,000 downloads at Podiobooks.com. Flores Girl is a prehistoric science fiction novel combining elements of adventure and speculative fiction, oh before I forget romance eBook that is available for free on Wattpad, the World’s Most Popular EBook Sharing Community. Wattpad delivers free eBook novels to your iPhone, BlackBerry, SmartPhones and other mobile devices. Join the thousands of readers that are following the adventures of Sarah and Richard as they unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a half million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity.  And you can do so right from your iPhone, BlackBerry or other SmartPhone! Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone!

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

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Michael Vick and the Amish: If we don’t forgive?

The news that Michael Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles left me feeling bemused and more than a bit conflicted.  Clearly, Vick was punished for his crime, that can’t be debate. Michael Vick lost millions, his reputation, a chunk of his pro football career and served 18 months in prison.  So in terms of payback to society one could argue Michael Vick paid his debt and I was close to forgiveness.

But then one of the ESPN commentators on the radio flamed the fires of revenge for me.  We were reminded that this wasn’t just a matter of fighting dogs that were tortured and killed, as though somehow they deserved that horrific fate but we were reminded of the cruelties to everyday family pets.  You know pets, those trusted loyal companions that functions as friend, family and companion.  We were reminded that small fuzzy, defenseless dogs were thrown into the pits to be killed as a sort of sick warm up for the main dog fighting event.  In fact, Vick had no qualms about sacrificing and killing his own family pets. As a dog and animal lover I find the behavior reprehensible and a form of betrayal belonging to a lower form of life, definitely bordering on the sub-human.  How could any sentient creature be so cruel?  Then I remembered, oh right, we’re talking human beings were acts of cruelty occur every day as if it was an integral part of our DNA. As we race to 7 billion being served, it’s not surprising to find that the deviants and sadists, even if they are the decided minority, are stilling teeming in absolute numbers. That’s the other cruel joke, that is when we assume global warming can be divorced from population control but I’ll save that commentary for another blog.

I remember some of the Michael Vick excuses.  It was the warrior culture Vick came from that engendered his behavior but hell after a losing game I don’t recall the fans stringing and hanging up the losing quarterback by his feet like they did to inferior fighting dogs?  Vick commented that this was the culture the adults in his childhood exposed him to but I’m sorry if Nazi Germany taught us anything it’s that as citizens we have a responsibility to know and do the right thing.  Torturing any creature is verboten in my book as it is for most of us despite what any given authority figure might say.

So, now I am agitated and upset regarding Vick and the other cruel sadists bastards that I have to share this once pretty little planet with.  Then I remember a transcendental moment a couple of years ago.  I think most of us vaguely remember the sad school massacre of five Amish children back in 2006, unfortunately these horrific incidents tend to blur into one another as the public become inured to the horror. The media was all over the story talking to the Amish parents who were trying to console the family of the man who performed the hideous crime.  One of the grieving mothers quoted a familiar Amish phrase, “If we don’t forgive, how can we be forgiven?”  Say it quickly and it almost sounds like a trite aphorism, light and somewhat soothing when you are dealing with some small slight from another person.  Say it when you daughter was just massacred because some deficient creature couldn’t get over the loss of his own daughter and it borders on sainthood.  And that’s was just what the Amish were saying as they embraced the grieving family of the mass murderer.

So should we forgive Michael Vick and his transgressions? Frankly, I think Michael Vick’s remorse is as ephemeral as Don Cheney’s Vietnam war record. And then I think of those words, “If we don’t forgive, how can we be forgiven?”

Cheers,

Erik John Bertel

Vick Media Update:  I listened to a few sound bites from the 60 Minutes interview and the Michael Vick mea culpa.  I could not force myself to watch the whole spectacle because I knew Vick was being handled and coached.  I wasn’t wrong because this morning ESPN reported that Vick has hired a media consultant team that has assembled a 42 page media crisis guide that will address the rehabilitation of Vick’s tarnished public persona. Listening to a few sound bites and reading between the scripted words he sounded more like he was sorry that he was caught rather than being truly repentant for his hideous actions in torturing dogs. When you realize that dog fighting is tied to gambling and organized crime well lets just say I’m rooting for the Giants anyway.On the plus side I don’t believe he will become a serial killer.

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

Technorati Profile

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

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The Ebu Gogo Legend and Flores Girl Novel

The Ebu Gogo (pronounced abu, rhymes with Paula Abdul) are the main characters in a traditional folk story told by the Flores Islanders. As the main characters in the island legends the Ebu Gogo are described as a small, nasty people with a voracious appetite that sometimes included the devouring of the occasional human baby. The Ebu Gogo were said to walk awkwardly and could be heard to murmuring in their own language and were said to be capable of parroting human speech. When they could tolerate the Ebu Gogo no more the Flores islanders drove the small people in the direction of the caves, perhaps near Liang Bau or perhaps they burned the survivors alive. In any case, these stories were probably told to keep truculent Flores children in line in much the same fashion as some western fairy tales are told.

Some scientists believe that the folk lore maybe a shared cultural memory of Homo floresiensis but there is no solid evidence to support that theory. However, legends have the Ebu Gogo disappearing about 400 years ago at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese explorers. Scientists working on the Homo floresiensis find have also referred to the Ebu Gogo as “Hobbits”. Followers of cryptozoology, the pseudoscience that studies legendary animals such as Bigfoot and Sasquatch, are also enamored of the Ebu Gogo legend. The Ebu Gogo are also the main characters in Flores Girl.   Their discovery by two American scientists begins a series of unfortunate events that has unforeseen consequences for all involved. For more information and images of the Ebu Gogo go to www.FloresGirl.com.

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

Technorati Profile

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release

Flores Girl Twitter Account

15 minutes of Fame is Now thirty seconds on YouTube

After watching the JK Wedding Dancers on the NBC Today Show I realized that what Andy Warhol had described as “15 minutes of fame” is now a coveted thirty seconds on YouTube. Life has become more transitory and superficial than ever. What’s worse, because of demographics, there are even more people willing to seeking superficiality.

NRA Endorses Guns for Terrorists

Just when you think the extremists in the NRA have hit an new nadir with their past support for armor piercing bullets and automatic assault weapons they begin a even more preposterous stance by support guns for terrorists. You heard right. The NRA has decided that our terrorists threat lists are not sufficient grounds for stopping somebody from buying weapons or explosives. Over the past over 90% of people on the terrorist list have been able to purchase these goodies not because the list didn’t identify them as terrorists but because there is no law stopping them from doing so. Seems the NRA is concerned that the terrorists rights maybe crushed by the heavy hand of the US government and that the list is faulty. Hello, the NRA is probably right about the legitimacy of the list but then fix the damn list.

July 22nd NRA Update: The latest affront to common sense was a concealed-gun bill that was just narrowly defeated in the Senate. The amendment would allow licensed gun owners in one state to be able to bring those concealed weapons into states with more stringent gun laws. The argument was that a car license in one state is applicable in another and they argue criminals don’t bother with gun licensing. Not true of course since lots of murders are committed by licensed gun owners but the NRA likes to perpetuate lies such as an armed, law abiding populace is a deterrent to criminals. Kind of flies in the face of the fact that nearly every national police force in this country was against these new gun loosening measures and the fact that if you have a gun in your household you are 20 times more likely to die from gun violence. Nothing like being held hostage by a powerful lobby but as the recent arrests in Jersey of some forty-plus local politicians for bribery can attest, all politicians are for sale and usually at bargain prices! Of course, most Americans are more concerned about the latest Erin Andrews video than they are about gun control.

Contest: Give Flores Girl a Digg and get the Sequel for Free

If you like the free Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot novel there’s a new contest. Just give me a Digg or a Stumble by using the button on the side on the www.floresgirl.com site and you’ll get the sequel for free when it becomes available later this year! You can use this form and just add your Digg name: Submit here! And yes this is a limited time offer because when the Digg counter hits a 100 the contest is over! No purchase is required.

Thanks for your support and keep Digging!

Cheers Erik John Bertel

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

Technorati Profile

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release

Flores Girl Twitter Account

Contest Rules: You must be 18 years of age or older to participate. Contest ends September 1st, 2009.  No purchase is necessary and no online subscription is necessary. First 100 contest entrants providing a Digg or Stumble Upon will receive a free copy of the sequel in an eBook format when the novel becomes available. We will notify the winners by email and winners of all contests will be contacted at the “sender” email address used to enter the contest, and the person receiving and replying to the winner announcement email will be considered the winner unless they specify another person within the reply email as the winner. No print copies are available, only eBook formats will be awarded, no exceptions! If the specified prize becomes unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances, Flores Girl may substitute a prize of like or equal value.

You understand and intend that any photo or information submitted by you to Flores Girl may be available for viewing, rating, review and comment on by the public, and understand that comments or ratings with which you disagree or are unhappy about may be published or otherwise become associated with any photo or information you submit to Flores Girl.

Open to U.S. Residents Only. Winners are solely responsible for all taxes and/or fees that may be incurred. Void where prohibited by law.