Highway Robbery has a new Twist on the Internet

How many web masters are ripping you off?

by Norma Holt

Some people just beginning their web experience gather enough information to produce material they flog to the unwary. Or they have web sites built for them and recycle the same hot air others have used to become millionaires, according to their claims.

When asked recently to examine a web site, the most amateurish page imaginable, it was something that should not be seen. Declaring himself an Internet Marketing guru the publisher aims to teach others how to build sites and get traffic to market effectively. For this he charges a fee and undoubtedly expects to make a lot of money. The site is so bad I could not even come to grips with the offer.

The facts are that people can make money on the web but it is not an easy thing to do. First it is a lot of work and a lot of learning taking place with rigorous focus and attention to detail before one becomes an expert. So why are there so many 'newbies' calling themselves 'gurus'. What is a 'guru' anyway. At this rate it appears to be the one who can best cheat others of their money. The skills required for that undertaking are much easier to learn and acquire.

The sad fact is that one cannot believe the spiels many put out there in the hope of trapping someone to pay for their lack of experience camouflaged by a bold face. Many do not care how they influence others to spend their money and some will sell their mother if it means making a profit. Even the most caring will sometimes become the IM bully for a quid. They can by pass their sense of morality because they did not write the e-mails given to them by their guru. The claims they portray is that they became millionaires taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a week by doing exactly what they can then teache you to do.

Oh, come on! The guy who delivers the free site-site a is raking in hundreds a week out of affiliate programs you are forced to join and pay hefty fees for by accepting the FREE web site. By the time $2-3,000 dollars in fees has been traded your free web site is a major burden.

SO:
Do you withdraw from the programs he got you into after all that money you invested?
Do you walk away from something you believed in but which is currently sending you broke?
Or do you believe the hype and continue until the next round of fees are due?

Finally the decision is made for you. You are broke and more fees are looming. You hate what you are doing and you want to run as far away from the Internet as possible. So what has the term free meant to you.

Together with that fraud comes the clever techniques of squeeze pages whereby one is given just 15 minutes or so to fall into the trap or the offer is gone forever. They usually associate with FREE OFFERs whereby you can download a whole of stuff if you act quickly. Speed is the operative word and once you enter the site you are suddenly on a page that says 'You Will See This Offer Only Once'. At the bottom of the page is usually a clock with the seconds ticking away. "If You Click Away fFrom this Page You Will Have To Pay Full Price" is the last message you will see before the price is announced and you are hooked. These tricks are played out through the lists you have opted to join in expectation of another offer.

What is the offer? Why is it so valuable? Why do I only have 15 minutes to purchase? The questions race in your brain but you are conditioned not to miss a bargain so you fall into the trap. What do you get back? Usually a lot of insignificant or useless e-books or other stuff that just takes up room on your computer. Before long you have CD's full of junk that has cost you a small fortune to acquire. You do it because it is too hard not to.

The fraudsters win out as people go for the bargain and the free offer. How to trick people into parting with their cash is akin to a science that the so-called 'guru' who gave you a web site has mastered. If you want to succeed doing things his way you become like him. You will trick people into buying hot air with smoking mirrors. That is the art of this style of Internet Marketing. Because there are no regulations and the Internet is a global phenomena there is no come back.

Unfortunately there is no way to protect people from these elements that are ruining it for the genuine marketers who know what they are talking about and offer real support. They are out there offering quality, good advice, structured help and personal assistance because they care. How do you find them? Look at everything closely and you will see who comes across as a genuine person who will usually give you the shirt off his back before expecting a return.

Sites that provide quality of service must deliver what people should receive and come to expect. Through the Internet Highway Robbery of today the Jesse James and Ned Keyy sagas take on a new twist from when they held you are gun-point and seized your valuables. Now they just plague you with guilt and trigger your emotions.

Its Coming

by Norma Holt
italk4u.com

Everyday now there is something about climate change in the news. Mostly it concerns the abnormal weather patterns with massive floods, fires, drought, and winds devastating countries, ripping down homes, killing hundreds in their wake, and causing havoc and massive property losses. The ice caps are melting and low lying land masses are going under. Mud slides bury entire towns and extremes of temperature are killing thousands.

The consequences are grave and there is no salvation. For anything to be reversed it would involve sacrifice of the very things humans depend on for their income. It would also require politicians to betray their mates in big business and that may cost them an election.

Man invented money as a convenient trade tool but allowed taxes and for some to grow extraordinarily rich and become gods in the sight of others. Wealth is a trade-off, however, as the only way to grow it is through the environment. Sources of wealth include minerals, forests, trees, drugs, transport, tourism, agriculture, fishing, the industries born of these things, and so on. Every one takes a toll on the environment and depletes the resources as the population of the planet increases to a point of being unsustainable.

For industry to flourish energy in the form of carbon producing resources is essential. The sight of belching smoke filling the atmosphere day after day is appalling but who can stop it. Only so much carbon can be removed by the dwindling forests which are the lungs of the earth. They produce oxygen, rain and food for the millions of species of flora and fauna that are also disappearing. As oxygen levels plummet and the food begins to dwindle there is a time limit for human survival.

Despite that scenario religious bodies, such as the Catholic Church, and governments, such as that of Australia, are encouraging people to produce more children and not to engage in birth control. The thinking that propels this kind of folly is that we will all die and live for eternity in heaven. This dogma does not allow for such things as reincarnation, whereby we return to the mess we create unless, of course, that place is no longer available.

Man is killing the only home he has, he is poisoning his food and the water that is essential to his life, and he is wilfully killing off everyone and everything else on the planet. Men who do this are terrorists of the worst kind for they will be responsible for more deaths and destruction than all the wars and terrorism acts combined.

Our planet is dying and instead of trying to nurture it back to health we accept the inevitable so that some may accumulate more dollars and grow richer and more powerful through it. It is just a matter of time before our time runs out.

Its Coming

by Norma Holt
italk4u.com

Everyday now there is something about climate change in the news. Mostly it concerns the abnormal weather patterns with massive floods, fires, drought, and winds devastating countries, ripping down homes, killing hundreds in their wake, and causing havoc and massive property losses. The ice caps are melting and low lying land masses are going under, but it won't stop there. Mud slides bury entire towns and extremes of temperature are killing thousands.

The consequences are grave and there is no salvation. For anything to be reversed it would involve sacrifice of the very things humans depend on for their income. It would also require politicians to betray big business and that may cost them an election.

Man invented money as a convenient trade tool but it has got completely out of hand. Now the goal is to make money at any cost and that includes the environment. As he rips out the heart of jungles, destroys ocean life, drives species of animals and plants to extinction, and pollutes his food and water with poisonous substances, the question is 'where is the logic in it.'

Can anything be done to stop it? How much time is there left?

As we cannot eat, breath or drink money what is the future for the super rich millionaires and billionaires who don't know where or when to stop? They are in the same sinking ship as the poor victims they have created through their greed, as are their children. It does not matter who or where they are their money ultimately is derived from the environment in one form or another.

As some grow extraordinarily rich and become god-like examples for others to follow we are racing towards the end of the planet as we know it. When it is no longer able to preserve or maintain life all will be gone, that includes you and me.

Wealth is a trade-off as the only way to acquire it is through the environment. Sources of wealth include minerals, forests, trees, drugs, transport, tourism, agriculture, fishing, tourism, industries born of and supported by these things, and so on. Every one of them takes a toll on the environment and depletes the planet as the population of increases to a point where it is fast becoming unsustainable.

Yet religious groups encourage large families and one in particular opposes safe sex practices. Sexually Transmitted Diseases are rife in many countries but the population still grows. Why is alright to kill by a STD than to abort an unborn embryo or prevent its conception in the first place? Can you see logic in this?

Many will argue that they are not responsible for what is happening, but they live in the moment. If you depend on money for anything at all, including food, you are a contributor to environmental degradation. Do you travel by anything that uses fuel, that crosses the landscape where clearing and buildings have replaced nature? Do you fish in a motor powered vehicle, do you use a net, a gun, or any other form of manufactures weapon to catch prey? The energy used to make it came from the environment.

For industry to flourish energy from some form of carbon producing resource is essential. The sight of belching smoke filling the atmosphere day after day is appalling, but who can stop it? Only so much carbon is removed by the dwindling forests, the lungs of the earth and producers of oxygen, rain and, to a degree, lower temperatures. They also produce food for thousands of species of flora and fauna, now fast disappearing. As oxygen levels plummet and food dwindles there is a time limit for human survival.

Man is killing the only home he has, he is poisoning his food and the water that is essential to his life, and he is willfully killing off everyone and everything else on the planet.

We think of terrorists as those who kill off a few people at a time but people engaged in such destruction will kill us all. And why? They are doing it for money.

So who are the greater terrorists. What mankind is doing now makes us responsible for more deaths and destruction than all the wars and terrorist acts combined.

But we can't stop! What began with the introduction of money more than 2,000ya is ending in the death of us all. Mankind is trapped by his own will. When he set out to grow his own food, his own way, he began on the path of destruction and the invention of money only hastened his end.

Enormous fires are burning in Europe, and after the blazes that devastated parts of the USA, Spain, the Balkans, and Australia (one almost destroying Canberra in 2003) there are the floods. They rate among the worst anyone has seen. Global warming contributes also to cyclones, tornadoes, or massive storm cells that create havoc, loss of habitat, destruction of entire cities (such as New Orleans), and high death tolls. Such events wipe out crops, kill droves of domestic herds, batter the environment even more, and bring disease. They leave behind a scorched earth and the more they occur the worst the planet becomes.

While floods may devastate one part of a country drought is destroying the rest of it. This is the case in Australia where the worst drought on records continues. People are being driven from the land and agriculture is in the doldrums. Disease among animals is also on the rise. Bird Flue is just one of the latest but Horse Flue has now hot Japan and Australia and is also on the march. It too will cross species as history shows.

Human diseases are also massively increasing. Plagues, Aids, tuberculosis, cancer, and so on, are now out of proportion to a few years ago. Smallpox, once thought to have been wiped out is again with us. As too is Polio. Antibiotics are failing as cure all for these diseases and the future is bleak.

Our planet is dying and instead of trying to nurture it back to health we accept the inevitable so that some may accumulate more dollars and grow richer and more powerful through it. It is just a matter of time before our time runs out.

What can we do about it?

To begin with we can stop ignoring what is happening and start making demands of governments, politicians, and anyone creating the mess to clean it up. We can do it if we have the will.

Outrageous Conflicts

by Norma Holt
http://italk4u.com

The Australian Minister for Health, Tony Abbot, recently handed the management of counselling services linked to abortion and marriage break-ups to the Catholic Church. As he is a practicing Catholic this is surely a conflict of interest in the same way it would be if he gave access to tax funded services to a business in which he holds shares.

Based on the premise that Tony Abbot thinks to be rewarded spiritually, as his religion teaches and that abortion is a mortal sin, or that he could spend eternity in hell if he does nothing about it, he literally has a gun at his head. People so indoctrinated are unfit to hold office as by failing their Church they face grave consequences. Incapable, therefore, of sound judgement they act against the interests of all Australians whom they are elected to represent.

In this case it is not he who presides as Minister of Health but the religious organisation he serves whose policies will eventually impact on all of us. Its primary goal is money and control, despite its claims to the contrary, which it is gaining through current Federal ministers, such as Abbot.

Tony Abbot along with the Treasurer, Peter Costello, and, to a certain extent, the Prime Minister, John Howard, follow the premise that the Catholic Church does the will of God and will, therefore, rightly or wrongly prevent women having abortions, getting a divorce, or using IVF or surrogacy to produce offspring.

The Catholic Church meanwhile will receive tax payers money and be in a position to change our lives. People with no desire to embrace Catholicism or, for that matter, any religion will suddenly be confronted with it as counselling becomes compulsory prior to using the above mentioned services. This is a step backwards to Catholic domination.

Tony Abbot has, therefore, committed an offence to Australians in general and to women in particular. He is unfit to hold office and to make such decisions. It is outrageous that a man who has fathered children can believe in a religion based on a virgin birth and violence.

The Catholic Church historically opposes science and banned Darwin's book on Evolution for over a hundred years for good reason. It took free thinkers centuries to climb out of its clutches and no one has the right to give any control back to it. It has much to fear as it engages in fraud and conspiracy, as spelled out on this website.

If the Australian Federal Government continues along this line they will have set a precedent that could force a complete change of thinking. Should we one day be subjected to a Muslim leader he may insist on women wearing veils while removing their rights to choose and be educated, and then legalise rape. This is not what Australians want and yet we are falling into the trap and being led into a place we do not want to be in.

While not a word against Tony Abbot's action has been heard in the Australian Media there is much at stake and it is time that this was exposed for the dangerous precedent it sets and the evil it represents.