Trying to Understand Adsense.

Google adsense ads are content driven. I don't know the technical jargon, but Google has a way of analyzing the content of a website or blog and attempts to target the folks most likely to be visiting said blog or website.

Yesterday, while posting on my D'offus of the Big-Doofus blog, I noticed that the ads across the top of page were all directed towards folks applying for welfare.

The little Google crawlers or spiders (or whatever they're called), picked up on "Obama" and "Hillary Clinton" and "Joe Biden" in the blog content and decided that most of the visitors to that blog must be interested in signing up for government assistance.

I guess you can't really expect Google crawlers or spiders (or whatever they're called), to understand parody. As Al pointed out in his comment on Washington sends $1 Food Stamp Checks ;

"Kind of scary when what starts out as a spoof actually becomes reality, isn't it?"

Another Update on Another Post.

Last November, I received an email with a gif called "recess at the asylum".
Someone had taken a snippet from "Ace Ventura" and pasted on the heads of an assortment of Democratic Party loonies.

It's interesting to note the placement of the heads. Hillary Clinton is the main character....with Obama in the background. I wonder if the person would have put Obama in front had he created the gif after Obama's coronation.

I thought the gif was funny, so I put in up on my blog. [Recess at the Asylum]

Funny thing......since then, that post has generated more than 50% of all the traffic this blog gets on any given day. Type "recess at the asylum" into the Google search engine and my blog is number one.

That post also comes up first using Yahoo and Alta Vista.

Even though the post gets a lot of traffic, the bounce rate for that page is high too. That means that not too many of that page's visitors go one to look at other areas of my blog. I don't know how to correct that.

I'm going to try an experiment. I'll put the same gif on my D'offus of the Big-Doofus blog and we'll see what effect, if any, that has on the traffic for the Big Doof.

Updates On Earlier Posts.

In an earlier post [The Red Envelope Project] I described a grassroots plan to send President Obama empty red envelopes with the following message written on the back;

"This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception."

It wasn't easy finding red envelopes. Although I wasn't able to find any locally, I was able to order a package of 50 from Office Depot.
50 envelopes...$4.49....no shipping.

Of course, it took a few days for the envelopes to arrive but, arrive they did.
Mailing 50 envelopes at 42 cents each comes to $21 postage.....a good Lenten penance.

In the post written the Friday before St. Valentine's Day, I mentioned receiving two books I'd ordered from Amazon.com . Namely:
No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers.
by Michael Novak.
and
Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam.
by Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera.

Honestly, I haven't had time to read "Without Roots" but I have started reading "No One Sees God."
I doubt that any review I'd write of that book would do it justice. Suffice to say, after starting the book, I ordered another copy to give as a birthday gift. I'd like a couple of atheist/agnostic acquaintances to read the book too, but I seriously doubt they would appreciate the gesture.

In January, I wrote a piece entitled Am I being Intolerant? in which I described my disdain for a "pro-choice, Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion" and asked if I was being intolerant in my attitude towards her.
I was expecting comments from my regular readers, but none did.

I only just recently received an anonymous comment from someone telling me that I was being intolerant towards the person in question. The rather lengthy comment was written by someone who is, obviously, not Catholic and clueless as to what I was really writing about.

Concerning tolerance, in a recent address delivered at the University of Toronto, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver said it better than I ever could;

"We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty -- these are Christian virtues. And obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an important working principle. But it's never an end itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil. Likewise, democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics should be quiet in public about serious moral issues because of some misguided sense of good manners."

Shrove Tuesday.

According to some, my being a first-born has had an influence on certain characteristics and traits that I possess.

First-borns have been described as "perfectionistic, reliable, conscientious, list-makers, well-organized, critical, serious, scholarly; achiever, self-sacrificing, people-pleaser, conservative, supporter of law and order, believer in authority and ritual, legalistic, loyal, and self-reliant".

I can't argue with any of that.

Maybe that's why I've felt a need to pass on "traditions" to my young son. These "traditions" have included such things as experiencing home-made, southern style, buttermilk biscuits and banana pudding made in the traditional manner.

Of course, this passing on of traditions means bringing him up in the religion of his fore-fathers....the Roman Catholic Church.

He's only three, so some of these traditions mean very little to him right now. Tomorrow night, the priest will put ashes on his forehead even though, at his age, Lent is pretty much meaningless.

Unfortunately, there aren't any Shrove Tuesday traditions in my family. I'm going to do my best to keep him from the Mardi Gras foolishness so prevalent in today's society.

Googling "Shrove Tuesday" you'll find a connection between today and pancakes. I suppose, long ago, pancakes were seen as an extravagance and having them the day before Lent made sense. In our home, pancakes are a once a week item and having them today wouldn't be so special.

I decided, instead, to make French Toast. My son enjoys them and to my way of thinking, more fitting for a Shrove Tuesday Tradition.

A New After-Dinner Speaker Needed.