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Mind Puppet is Ready!

May 17th, 2012

Are you a Mind Puppet? Perhaps we all are. That’s one of the ideas covered in the latest book in my “At Your Own Risk Series.” Like the other books in the series it’s available for Kindle readers (and probably Barnes and Noble’s Nook by the time you read this). If you do not own a Kindle, you can get a free desktop reader on the sales page for the book, which is here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083IWDWE

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

Mind Puppet

“If you have ever felt compelled to do something which felt wrong, you will understand the basic premise of the first essay here. We are certainly led around by things going on below consciousness. But our conscious beliefs about things can mislead us just as much, as I point out with several true stories. If we believe that all laws should be respected, for example, and further believe in logic as the arbiter of truth, we will at some point be compelled to participate in atrocities merely because they are legislated. A mind puppet is a person who is led about by his or her mind, both consciously and unconsciously, especially in ways that do not result in good outcomes. We all fit that description at times.”

In other essays (there are ten total), I challenge the idea of retirement, argue that there is no corporate crime, and call the so-called “war on terror” a farce. I also look at the American Dream and ask at what point it becomes a nightmare (and whether living for a dream makes sense in any case).

The essay titled, “Sand Castles and Property Rights” explores the nature of property by starting with something we all can understand; a child’s right to have his sand castle left alone. I explain why we need to own things, why we need to respect other people’s ownership of their property, and why in practice we need to set limits on ownership. As with all my writing, I try to make my points very clear by using simple examples.

The sixth essay in the book has a title I will not repeat here, since doing so might get me on an FBI watch list. In it, I challenge » Read more: Mind Puppet is Ready!

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Do I Love This Country?

May 14th, 2012

It makes me uncomfortable to say I love this country, but I do not hate it. In my book, Blue Snake, I have an essay titled, “Why Do They Hate Us?” It looks at why the United States is viewed so negatively in much of the world, using a fictional story and real examples of what the government has done to people in other countries over the years. Another essay is titled “I Have No Duty to My Country.” (In case you have not read the book, I should mention that it’s not all political; there are essays on guilt, how to quit a job, and how much evil lurks in good people, for example.) These, and other things I’ve written, may cause some people to think I hate America.

Blue Snake

I do not hate this county. It is true that I refuse to stand up for the national anthem, and that I think patriotism is a sickness. But that does not mean I hate the country. I just don’t pledge allegiance to strangers (I don’t know most of the people in the United States) or flags or governments. In my book “Mind Puppet” (coming soon), I explain it like this:

“I love this country in some sense; just not for reasons of patriotism. It feels more like home than other countries, probably because I was born and raised here. The mountains in the west are beautiful, as are the lakes and forests of the northeast. Some parts of the culture here are wonderful, and there are elements of what is called the “American spirit” that I identify with. I love some of the ideas which led to the creation of this nation. I think that respect for individual rights is a great ideal. The concepts of property rights that are part of the law here really benefit people. I appreciate that I can say what I like in this essay, on a website, or on the street.”

I feel that people are brainwashed from a young age about patriotism. First, they are convinced that » Read more: Do I Love This Country?

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Gay Jesus Has Been Published!

May 3rd, 2012

Since this is the National Day of Reason (a secular alternative to the federally-proclaimed National Day of Prayer), it is a good day for the release of the first of my books in the “At Your Own Risk Series.” It has just been published for Amazon Kindle here:

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Your-Risk-Series-ebook/dp/B007ZCRY9Q

Gay Jesus

If you don’t have one of these devices, you can download a free Kindle reader for your computer there as well.

Gay Jesus is a collection of ten essays on a variety of subjects. There is no paper version, but it will also be published on the Barnes and Noble Nook reader by this weekend. At the moment the price is just $2.99 (that’s less than 30 cents per essay!).

Now, I know some people will be upset by what I’ve written, but all I can really say to that is don’t buy the book if you are easily offended. I might even lose some friends over this, but so be it. I am not offending for the sake of offense. The things I write I believe, and if the people who think they know me are surprised or shocked, it is only because they have not asked my opinion on these subjects or they just haven’t listened very well.

No, I do not believe Jesus was gay, but in the first essay I do look at what it would mean if he was, and how asking “what if” questions like these can reveal our hidden prejudices.

In my second essay I relate how a plane I was on erupted in cheers for the soldiers on board. It truly sickened me to see such mindless worshiping of military service. The thought ran through my mind: Don’t encourage these young people to keep throwing away their lives (they were on their way to Iraq on this particular flight). You can read the essay to understand the rest of my reasoning, but here’s a question that gets at the heart of the matter: How were they “defending our freedom” (the pilot’s words–which the passengers seemed to agree with wholeheartedly) by » Read more: Gay Jesus Has Been Published!

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Posted in personal, philosophy, ponderings, writing

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A Book of Secrets

April 24th, 2012

I just published You Aren’t Supposed to Know – A Book of Secrets on Kindle (and probably on Nook by the time you read this). It has always been a part of The Secrets Package, which is still perhaps the best way to get it. You get six PDF e-books with the package, with all sorts of cool information (one is on how to detect lying in others, another covers how to beat a lie detector test, and the others cover many little-known bits of knowledge). But if you really just like to read on your Kindle device now (they are very convenient), here is where you can get You Aren’t Supposed to Know:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007WN3C30

Here’s a look at some of what’s in the book (over 300 ages and 96,000 words, by the way; this is not a pamphlet)…

Subliminal Persuasion Techniques – These are covered in the first chapter, and although you might feel a bit uncomfortable using some of the methods explained here (I wouldn’t use a few of these), you will want to read this to protect yourself from having them used on you. The same can be said for the chapter on hypnotic sales writing techniques (I did use a few of these to quadruple the subscription rate for » Read more: A Book of Secrets

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Posted in money, writing

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My Survival Guide

March 23rd, 2012

I wrote a book a few years ago (just after the financial crisis of late 2008), and made it part of my Secrets Package (it still is part of that collection, which is available at http://www.thesecretinformationsite.com). It is called The Survival Guide for Interesting Times. Just recently I updated it and published it separately as a Kindle book here:

The Survival Guide for Interesting Times

If you don’t have a Kindle reader, you can download a desktop version for free here:

Kindle for PC

It looks at survival from a broad perspective, to say the least. I start with basic financial matters like how to get out of debt fast, live on less, develop streams of income, and prepare for unexpected events. I move on to what to do when “interesting times” arrive, including how to raise cash fast, find survival jobs and start low-investment businesses.

As the book moves along it gets into more and more extreme scenarios, and the preparation you can make for them. Epidemics, wars, and “Mad Max” futures are » Read more: My Survival Guide

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Posted in advice, personal, writing

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Latest Work

February 6th, 2012

What have I been writing lately? Well, I have been working on some books, but I still keep on top of a variety of websites. For example, I have this recent page on my “ideas” site:

The Value of Things

This is an article about the contextual nature of value. We tend to think about the value of things in currency terms and in terms of “market value,” and that’s a useful perspective. But things are worth something different to each of us in reality. Gold coins would be just another toy for a baby, for example, and vacation to France might have a value of $10,000 to one person while having no actual value to another. I further explore what it means to have value.

Deep Thinking

This is a how-to article from my brainpower website. I start with the assumption that » Read more: Latest Work

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How I Make a Living Writing

January 25th, 2012

If you want to make a living writing, you have to get busy writing. Ideas are just a start; getting them down on paper or into a computer file is what you need to do. And sometimes you even have to write on subjects which are less than inspiring, if that’s what it takes to get the income flowing.

For example, this morning I wrote a new page for my website on how to remove carpet stains. You can see it here if you care about the ongoing debate between carpet lovers and those who prefer wood floors: Carpet Versus Hardwood Flooring. No, I am not thrilled about writing on the subject of carpet, but that little website pays all the household bills, so I figure I should devote thirty or forty minutes to it every week or two.

Fortunately it is easier than ever to write about anything now. This is, of course, due to » Read more: How I Make a Living Writing

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Posted in internet, money, writing

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The Thousand Mile Hole

January 17th, 2012

That’s the name of my newest book. Subtitled, “A Guide to Deep Thought,” it starts with a fall into a hole that is (you guessed it) a thousand miles deep. There is something different about a hole like that, when compared to other holes. Normally, if you fall off a cliff or into a deep hole, you die very quickly. Perhaps you have the proverbial “life flashing before your eyes,” but it has to flash quickly since you will hit bottom in mere seconds. But with a hole of a thousand miles, and the with humans reaching terminal velocity at around 125 miles per hour, you would fall for eight hours before certain death.

Or is death certain? That’s one of the many things I explore as I fall to my death all day long in Chapter One. This is an extended version of the classic “thought experiment” used by Albert Einstein and others. In Einstein’s case, he imagined things like running alongside a beam of light, or a man falling from a building. He used these exercises in imagination to change the face of modern physics.

In other chapters I look at many ways to think deeply and creatively about almost anything.

The book was really finished more than a year ago, but I got busy with many other projects. In order to get this one out there I finally decided to skip the paper version for now. The book  has been published only on Amazon Kindle. You can get a copy here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006U1OQ2Q

Fortunately, if you do not have a Kindle reader, it costs nothing to » Read more: The Thousand Mile Hole

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Three Tips for Writers

December 28th, 2011

Just to get a post up (it’s been a while), I’ll give a little bit of “insider information” for writers who have a book being published, or those who hope to soon. Three items come to mind as I think through the process of getting my book “101 Weird Ways to Make Money” published.

1. Negotiate

It may seem that as a first time author you should just take the deal given to you, and in general that may be true. But there is always room for negotiation. When the contract was sent to me by Wiley and Sons, I had problems with four or five relatively minor parts of it. They  agreed to changes in all of them. The details are unimportant here, since they will be different in your case, but I didn’t ask for  more of an advance or higher royalties. I suspect that first-time authors would not often be able to negotiate higher royalties or advances unless they are famous or in the news.

2. Buy Your Books Online

Should you buy your own copies of your book from the publisher? Maybe; but check the price that you pay and if it only pennies more to buy online, get your copies there. Many publisher/author contracts will require that » Read more: Three Tips for Writers

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Free Chapter

December 5th, 2011

Here is a free chapter from 101 Weird Ways to Make Money (you can order the book through the link to the right).

Chapter 8

The Business of Chasing Criminals

Bounty Hunting Careers

I was a skip tracer many years ago. Sometimes confused with bounty hunting, skip tracing is simply finding people. I did this primarily by phone when working for a collection agency, and I had to actually physically locate the person being sued when I was a process server. Bounty hunters, also called “bail enforcement agents,” use skip tracing techniques, but their job is more interesting and dangerous than simply locating someone.

They are primarily hired by bail bond agencies. Suppose a court sets bail at $50,000 for someone charged with theft. A bail bond agency might charge the accused $5,000 (and sometimes require collateral), and then give or guarantee the court the $50,000, which is forfeited if the defendant doesn’t make it to trial on time. In this case, rather than lose the $50,000, the bondsman » Read more: Free Chapter

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