WASHINGTON, DC.—In response to recent polling showing that a growing segment of America now believes that President Barrak Obama is both the antichrist, and an android, the President made the following statement at today’s White House press conference.

“I’m unconcerned. Our country is facing serious challenges right now, and I don’t want us to lose focus on what’s important, and get drawn into this kind of politics as usual moment.

“My religious faith is a deeply personal thing,” the President went on. “I worship secretly, in caves with a small group of black clad followers and close confidants. As far as anyone can tell, we’re worshiping Jesus. That is certainly what I’m telling you now.”

“I’m not saying that the concept of a  Robot Antichrist isn’t biblically valid. A robot could, for example, go back and time and place a birth announcement into a Hawaiian Newspaper. Hypothetically. But such conjecture is surely a part of the politics of the past.”

I am a human being, not a Ceylon, and I am not the Beast foretold in Revelations. Frankly, I would find the whole thing kind of amusing, if my programming allowed me to experience that emotion.”

“But I’m kidding,” the President continued. “Seriously.”

CUPERTINO, CA.—Apple CEO Steve Jobs stunned the computing world today when instead of announcing a new tablet based computer, he instead touted ‘ishrink,’ an application which he used on stage to reduce himself 50% in size. Clutching a relatively enormous iPhone, Jobs explained that in most workplaces, half-sized humans would be an economical, not to mention an ecological, revolution.

“I no longer need a bigger screen,” Jobs went on. “This goddamned thing is fucking huge to me now.”

CUPERTINO, CA—Most industry analyst concur that the introduction of the much-anticiapted Apple table this Wednesday will in all likelihood trigger the rapture and the return of Jesus Christ to Earth.

“A 10 inch color touch-screen mobile device was foretold in the book of revelations,” said Fiona Barkbiter, a biblical scholar at the Inbred Institute for Bible Immersion. “It signals the beginning of the tribulation, a time period in which media convergence, broadband penetration and demonic influences transform the computing experience”

The ‘coolness factor’ combined with the hovering, glowing form of Jesus calling the faithful into the sky with their shining i-tablets under their arms, will create a spike in sales unheard of since the introduction of the original color imac in the 90s, said one Apple insider on condition of publicity.

The tablet will ship with a padded, apple branded genuflection pad, which will allow the elderly or infirm to prostate themselves before it, free voice-to-sms-prayer software, and a ‘Beast-Locator’ application. An Audible / Amazon Bundle including both text and narrated versions of the ‘Left Behind’ series of books and diatribes will also be included with the device.

Most importantly, however the tablet will permit opening and editing MS office documents, and it will have full flash support.

I have a google analytics account which I use to monitor activity on the half dozen sites I’m involved with in some way. Analytics is a fancy term for a fancy version of what we used to call ‘hit tracking’ or ‘log analysis.’ This new generation of software is much more accurate than the old stuff, like Webalyzer, the old free-with-your-cheapo-web-hosting market leader. You instantly notice that Analytics doesn’t count bots, spiders, or your own hits, for example.

As a result, it’s possible to see your site flatline at absolute zero, as this site has done for some time now.

The personal website, of course, is a silly thing, made obsolete by social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and those other ones nobody uses anymore. Photosharing services and youtube, specializing in that kind of content, combined with social networking and blogging platforms round out the suite of venues for user generated content.

Looking at my other sites, my parenting site, my energy conservation site, my fantasy magazine site, I can see that there is a steady stream of traffic that emerges from search engines and links; it may be a small stream, but it’s always there.

One of the things that differentiates these sites from a personal site is the site URL; specifically, the first name last name URL. Nobody is searching for your name. They’re looking for stuff they’re interested in. So if you have a popular name, appending your profession or your chief interest to your domain name isn’t really a bad thing at all, if it gets some search terms into your URL.

I’ve been able to drive traffic to this site from Facebook on occasion, but again, why bother posting to this site at all? There is no permanent trickle of traffic from this activity. So I have gradually peeled the personal stuff out of this site, and will eventually leave only the resume type stuff. What’s fun is that if I give someone a business card, I can actually tell if they have looked at the site, as any activity at all stands out from the flatline!

The flatline tells us a lot of things. Here are a few:

• Eclectic scatterings of keywords and meta tags unrelated to your URL do not attract search-engine traffic.
• Random walks through the web don’t produce a trickle of traffic. Web 2.0 has interstates; nobody drives by your coffeeshop on route 66 anymore.
• Traffic driven from social media doesn’t necessarily turn into repeat traffic.
• Stale content creates zero traffic.

Of course my other experience here, of offending a client with the bald statement concerning how difficult it can be to create web traffic (heh) proves that unique strings of keywords can still light your site up like a highway flare for the tiny populations of people narrowly focused on those unique keywords.

So don’t badmouth your high-school gym teacher by name; he’ll find you and give you a wedgie.

The small business site now exists as a crossroads, a clearing house and an archive for content that is primarily viewed in different venues; Facebook, Twitter, and RSS newsreaders, for example. It’s an important asset as part of a coordinated marketing strategy, but don’t let anyone tell you that ‘if you build it, they will come.’

In my higher traffic sites, the small percentage of hits which come natively from search engines also tells us that focusing narrowly on tricking the search engines into giving you a higher ranking is probably not something you should be spending a ton of money on; content creation, linking, pushing your content out to higher traffic sites, and community building are more important.

You can’t pay a shyster a blob of cash to create a site which will just sit out there and draw a ton of traffic without further effort.

The glistening lanes of the information superhighway are not paved with gold, but with the blood, sweat and tears of hardworking, crafty and dedicated individuals, forever scrambling, aiming and firing at a moving target.

The web is another evolutionary space. No surprise!

BOULDER, CO—Jeremy Epstein a prominent Boulder area small business person, recently fled the scene of a minor accident and avoided talking to the police for over twenty four hours, causing not a single moment of concern or interest in anyone on the face of the planet earth. Disinterested eye-witnessess recall a woman, not Epstein’s wife, in the passenger seat of the car as he drove slowly from the crime scene, in which a city mailbox was dented.

When asked about the incident, local law-enforcement officials remained completely silent, and when pressed for an explanation of the lack of police interest, the following statement was issued:

“This Epstein Guy is like, nobody special. We are billing him for the mailbox. He has no history of drunk or reckless driving. In fact, he has no history of any sort at all. He is a completely faceless non-entitiy. We’re not sure who was in the car with him at the time of the accident, nor do we, or should anyone else, care.”

Epstein’s infraction, similar to perhaps a half-billion like it in the last ten years, is part of a disturbing trend, in which minor dust-ups and embarrassments comitted by ordinary citizens are passed over by major news outlets in favor of the pecadillos of the rich and famous, as well as in some cases actual news stories.

Sociologist Margaret Archer, Ph.D, in her recent book, “Insufficiently Persecuted,” laid out her case for a more thorough public airing of grievances for both the famous, and the not-so famous.

“We may not all be as talented as a Tiger Woods, as powerful as Dick Cheney, or as beloved as former president Clinton, but we can all have car accidents, accidentally shoot our friends, or ejaculate on interns. In a just society each and every asinine incident would receive equal media exposure.”

Ms. Archer calls for the creation of a National Public Humiliation Database, which all Americans would be required to check on a daily basis. “I can’t think of a better use for tax stimulus dollars. Every American is entitled to be harassed, hounded, and exposed before his or her peers.”

When asked to comment on the situation, a disinterested Epstein shrugged and puffed out his cheeks.

“Leave me alone,” he said. “Nobody cares.”

CAMBRIDGE, MA— The employee-owners of the Harvest Food Co-op come from many different communities, many different walks of life. White and African American, Asian and Latino. Gay and Straight. Professional and working class.

They can now count a former US president among their number.

Early by ten minutes for the interview, I watched as Bush carefully chopped and wrapped blocks of bulk tofu.”I put in my 10 hours a week, which increases my discount from 1% to 5% on everything they sell here,” says a relaxed George Walker Bush, former US president. “Over a year, that can add up. Especially if you’re trying to eat organic.”

“Don’t ever write that I don’t know how hard it can be, to put food on your family.”

Taking his break at the Clear Conscience Cafe, the Co-op’s eco-conscious eatery, Dubya sipped a mocha latte with soymilk. “Took me over fifty years to realize that dairy gave me gas. Not that I didn’t enjoy blasting Cheney now and then.” He shook his head, and laughed in a way not unlike the parody performed by Will Farrel. “Good times.”

How does he respond, when the overwhelmingly liberal shoppers and staff of the Coop give him a hard time?

“Hey,” I tell them, “Have you ever fucked up at a job? Huh? Have you, Nguyen? For Christ’s sake, I wanted to be baseball commissioner. Fucking Cheney came around and told me the country needed me. Blah, blah, blah. Next thing I know I’m staring into Putin’s eyes and wondering what the in the name of holy shit I’m gonna say next.”

A more somber Bush picked at his green goddess salad. “You know, I really do kick ass at a barbecue. That’s why I almost beat that Gore douche-bag, first time around. Damn that guy was a stiff. We probably should have let poindexter have it, of course, the way it all turned out.” Bush paused to high-five an employe pushing a mop and bucket. “Up high, Tchi!xo. Don’t leave me hanging!”

Smiling again, Bush continued. “What are you going to do? Still, I do like a good barbacue”

Asked point blank why he’s working at the Co-op, living at the Central Square YMCA down the street, his face takes on that familar look of dead-pan resolve.

“After Laura gave me the boot, I hit the bottle for awhile. It was bad. Real bad. I needed a change of pace. I wanted to go somewhere I would be no big deal. Then it hit me. The People’s Republic of Cambridge. They let the gays get married there. I figured they couldn’t turn me away.”

“I had to get away from all those assholes talking about politics all the damn time. Politics never interested me, to tell you the truth.” He paused to wipe a few a fleck of avocado from the corner of his mouth. “You wanna talk baseball?”

HOLLYWOOD—A celebrity you’ve never heard today did something that nobody on earth should give a flying fuck about. The celebrity may or may not have been intoxicated, having sex, operating a motor vehicle, or all of the above simultaneously. They may or may not have been wearing underwear, punching paparazzi, falling off motorcycles, setting themselves on fire, or sexually assaulting their own children.

Family members of the celebrity may or may not have been available for comment, and other celebrities you have never heard of who somehow seem even less significant than the celebrity in question may sound off about the absurdly unimportant acts that the original celebrity is alleged to have committed.

Friends and family of the celebrity may or may not defend or excuse the celebrities behavior by pointing out that the celebrity has been under a lot of stress, has a history of substance abuse, was molested as a chid, or didn’t really mean whatever it is the celebrity is reported to have said or done.

Video of the unimportant, stupid, boorish, mocking, racist or insulting behavior may or may  not have been posted to YouTube, tweeted, slash-dotted, farked, facebooked, myspaced, friendstered, emailed or infomercialed. District attorneys may or may not have appeared at press conferences to discuss this mindless waste of time with dozens of so-called journalists.

Scrolling newsfeeds summarizing this pathetic escapade into a pithy play-on-words may or may not be scrolling on every news program on the planet.

Self-serving apologies by public relations experts employed by the forgettable celebrity may or may not have been met with stinging rebukes by the faceless non-entities injured, insulted, annoyed or maimed during the totally un-newsworth peccadillo in question.

Specialists in whatever it is the celebrity was involved with indicate that the farcical non-event may or rmay not be important in a broader social context, and suggest that there may be more to uncover in the future about this complete and total waste of everyone’s time.

NEW YORK— Increases in the consumption of several categories of non-durable goods during the last quarter have sparked hope amongst economists that the sluggish US economy may be on the rebound. Plastic dog feces, Offensive Greeting Cards, and penis-related merchandise top the list of ‘useless crap’ commodities trending upwards in the last three months.

“One of the best measures of consumer confidence is how much money is spent on useless bullshit that no one on earth could possibly need,” said  Peter Dreher of the Conference Board.

“Toilet mugs, Big momma undies, stuffed animals with giant genitals, obscenely dancing Santa Clause figurines—these things make up what we call the  ’Spencer’s Index ‘ The Spencer index has tracked every major economic recovery since the invention of the joy buzzer in 1928.”

“American’s have always led the world in consumption of useless crap,” Dreher continued, “and in the 21st century we are leaders in the production of useless digital crap. If we combine the figures for material useless crap, with digital bullshit, such as the iphone ifart application, Windows Vista, and Facebook Tchotchke games, our economic future looks even better.

“I have no doubt the economy is on the road to recovery. And that that road goes up a gigantic stinking mountain of moronic, useless garbage.”

LONDON—The Nobel Committee gave the prize to President Obama less than a year after his election “for his extraordinary dissimilarity to former us “president” G.W. Bush.”

The Nobel Committee went on to state, “Obama’s name is in no way related to foliage. He is at least 50% not the same race as America’s former special-needs dictator. He’s genuinely affable. In his many speeches to date he has not accused any other nation of being in league with any type of Dark Lord, or forced his staffers to make up terrifying stories at the United Nations. His daughters have not as of yet engaged in drunken antics. His wife has never run anyone over with a car. His family has no history of profitteering from trade with Nazi Germany.”

The award came as a huge surprise to those unaware that G.W. Bush was no longer president, and to those perched on rooftops awaiting the rapture. Anti-peace scholars at The American Enterprise Institute were highly critical of a standing US President receiving a so-called “peace prize.”

“How will we maintain the credible threat of unilateral wars based on faulty intelligence?” asked a visibily agitated John Bolton, former US ambassador’ to the so-called ‘United Nations. “Sure, peace is a fine thing—in principle. But in the real world, War is far more practical, and less of a pain in the ass.”

In a rare addendum, the Nobel Comittee appended a coupon good for two additional Nobel prizes, in the color of Obama’s choice, if any of his administrations actions leads to a peaceful outcome anywhere in the world.

One Nobel official hastened to add that this coupon was not ironic. “Really, just not being Bush is enough for this one.”