Lord, Smite Thou Mine Enemies who Practice Indiscriminate Reciprocal Linking

Online publisher lifts his Google-related concerns to God (in person, no less!)

Link to me online with thine eyes

There's a, um, a "Brian" to see you, Sir.



A WHAT?



A man named Brian, Sir?



Oh, very well, send him in.



Yes, Your Holiness.




Honestly, Gabriel, have you any idea how busy I am this morning?



Sir?



Oh, just send him in, would you? For heaven's sake!







Yes, Sir.

Mumble mumble mumble

Right, now, Brian, Brian -- where have I heard that name before? Oh, blimey: I hope it's not that Webmaster from Virginia. I haven't exactly been answering HIS prayers lately, have I?



Then again, he's alive and sound of body, and that's really SAYING something these days.



Fine, let him complain: I'll just confront him with the gloomy headlines in a national (or better yet, international) page of any one of a thousand newspapers. He'll be like: "On second thought, forget about me, Your Worthiness: You've got more important things to deal with."



Mind you, that tactic seems a trifle manipulative (not to mention evasive) for an all-powerful God such as myself. Besides, I really prefer to deal with prayer requests on their own merit, without consideration for how their fulfillment might serve to indirectly highlight my blatant tardiness when it comes to satisfying other in-themselves far more urgent requests -- of which this towering inbox admonishes me there are instances a-plenty!



SIGH! That's the problem with being an all-knowing mucker like myself: Try as you may, you simply cannot KID yourself about anything! (Oh, well: I suppose I should have thought of that before I created everything!)



Ah, Webmaster Brian, is it? What a nice surprise! Please, be seated.



Of course, logically speaking, it's not really a surprise, is it? insofar as I'm omniscient and have therefore seen this meeting coming, as it were, from the very beginning of Time itself. Still, I'm surprised, so to speak,when I think of how surprised I would be if I COULD be surprised.



That's not surprising.



Touch�, Brian, touch�."That's not surprising," quoth he. Ha ha! Oh, you are just too funny, my good sir!



But now, out with it: What's the problem?(Of course, I should already KNOW what the problem is, shouldn't? And normally I would, but this desk is such a mess. You can't get good office help these days. Then again, how are you going to fire them, when every single staff member is a literal Pope-certified Saint?)



I just had a few quick questions, really.



Thank heavens for that! I thought you were going to ask me for the usual worldly success that you human lot tend to be after --



Not at all.







Wait a minute, didn't I hear you praying just last night?



Oh, that



.Yes, you actually wanted me to, and quote, "intercede with Google" to make them see the "error of their ways". What was that all about? (I always get a kick out of your prayers, by the way, even if I myself don't understand them -- which, of course, is saying an AWFUL LOT in my case, yes? an AWFUL LOT, INDEED! Ha ha! I mean,fancy God, not understanding somebody's prayers!)



Yes, well, God, as I tried to explaining that prayer (and forgive me for not making it clearer at the time), I think Google is wrong to rate sites based on the number of other pages that link to that site.



Now, how could that be wrong? (I already "know" your answer, of course, but humor me by restating it. After all, if we take this omniscience business too far,it would never be necessary for anybody to say ANYTHING, and then where would I be on Sunday morning when I go to turn on the telly and find that nobody is even bothering to magnify my name anymore? Everybody will be like: "What, God? Oh, He's great and all that, but omniscient as he is, He already knows it. As for OUR devotion, let him just read our minds and he'll SEE how favorably disposed we are towards Him")



But come: Google is wrong because?



Well, just look at all the disingenuous linking that their policy has created.



Disingenuous linking?







Take me, for instance, Your Mightiness.



Please, just call me God.



I mean, I run a site about owls, right?



Ah, yes, owls. One of my better creations.(How about that Barred Owl, eh? He's like: "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?" Ha ha!)



Yes, well, anyway. So I get these E-mails with the subject line telling me how much these dudes like my site. They'll be like "Great site, dude," right?



RightBut then when I read the text of the message in question, it becomes immediately clear that the message-senders have never even bothered to glance at my "great" site.



Ah, I see you've brought a copy of one such e-mail. Let's look at together, shall we?



Right, Exhibit A, Your Honor-- I mean God:

Dear Webmaster,I think you have an excellent site about BIRDS. Since my site is about BIRDS, too, I would like to trade links with you.

Now, no real owl lover would write a message like that, constantly referring to owls using the inappropriately vague nomenclature of "birds".







Certainly not. (Ha! Birds, indeed!They may just as well have said "animals"!)







So the e-mail has obviously been generated by some computer software that has evaluated my site keywords and decided that my content is probably related to "birds".







Oh, my







But it gets worse.







Oh? How so? You amaze me (or you certainly "would do" if such a thing were logically possible!)Lately I've been getting shameless link-exchange requests from sites that obviously have nothing to do with owls whatsoever.



No!



Yes! Such as the following:

Dear Sir, I would like to include your BIRD site in the links section of my CASINO STRATEGIES page.

In other words, God, thanks to Google's policy of rankings sites by their incoming links, folks are linking to folks (left, right, and center, so to speak), but such linking seldom has anything to do with the quality (or lack thereof)of the site thus linked to!







MERCY! You DO have a point there,Brian, old man. This IS an emergency. (Hold on a moment.)







Israfel? Hello, Israfel?







How's my favorite "seraph harper "doing, eh? Still "harping," I take it? Ha ha! Yes,I'd love to get together for lunch. I'll have my secretary get back to yours.







Listen, Israfel, you know Eric Schmidt,right, current CEO of Google? I need you to "speak to his heart" today.







That's right: "Doctor" EricSchmidt. Yeah, he's been overemphasizing the importance of incoming links in his indexing algorithms again.



I'd like you to arrange some omen for him that will let him seethe error of his ways.







How's that? Why don't I speak to his heart myself? You must be joking! Do you know how busy I am up here today?!







Right, so get cracking, yes? And let him know (in some suitably subtle way, of course) that I'm not playing games up here. I mean, there's nothing that I'd like better than to let him hang out on "cloud nine" when he finally joins us here in Heaven, but I can (and what's more I will) bump him down a cloud if he fights me on this one.







All righty, then. Oh, and have a great weekend, you hear? Very good, then. Bye-bye.







There we are, Brian: It's all "sorted,"as the British would say







Now then, is that all you wanted to see me about?







Yes, thank you so much.







Not a problem.







Um, so when do you think Schmidt will change his mind on this?







Don't rush me, sirrah, lest I take your impatience for blasphemous ingratitude! You've already seen me "place your order," so to speak, with that "seraph harper" dude. Now we've just got to let the process work!







Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a few world problems to work on, like (oh, I don't know) terrorism,nuclear proliferation, and global warming for starters!







Oh, of course. Well, thank you for your help, Your Godhead.



Tut-tut-tut.



Er, God.



Hey, listen, what am I here for, after all?







Oh, I almost forgot: Do you have any sins that you'd like to confess? If so, you might as well tell me now while you're here.







Uh, no, not really.



Brian??? Come on, old boy, this is GOD you're talking to here!



No, seriously, nothing special has happened lately.



Don't forget: I'm not only omniscient,but I'm omnipresent, too. "Here, There, and Everywhere "to quote those lovable scape-graces, the Beatles. (Try as I might,I could never come down hard on the admittedly numerous moral blunders of those musical moptops!) Yes, I heard you yelling at some customer service rep just last night (a charming family man,from India, as it happened!) about the apparent double-billing of the monthly service fee from your Internet provider.



Well, I'm sorry, but he ticked me off. He kept trying to tell me that the apparent double-charge was just an accounting thing and that I was eventually only going to be charged once.





Yes, but --



And I was like, "Well, that's all well and good, but as far as my current balance is concerned,it's now $25 lower than it should be thanks to this 'accounting thing'".







Aye, Brian, but I seem to recall that your were shouting at this point.



That's the point, God: I WASN'T shouting until he started SAYING that I was shouting, and then I was like,"I WASN'T shouting until you leveled that false accusation!"







I know, I know.



And then he's like, "Sir, I can't speak to you if you don't lower your voice," and I'm like,"I'm not raising my voice!" Or at least I wasn't until he made that false accusation!



The customer service rep was indeed out of line -- and if he knows what's good for him in the after-life, he'll seek my forgiveness on this score as soon as possible.



Having said that, however, that doesn't change the fact that you lost your temper, too!



I suppose you're right.You SUPPOSE I'm right? Oh, that's a good one. I AM God, after all and he "supposes" I'm right!







Okay, so -- so I am sorry, so, um,forgive me.



Forgive you, for what? Come on, spit it out.



Forgive me, for I have...



You have what, Brian? Say it



s-s-sinned.



Y-y-yes, you c-c-certainly have, young man. I have a good mind to send you on an all-expense-paid "guilt trip" to the lovely vacation resort of Skid Row, in the underdeveloped downtown area of the mega-city of your choice!But since you asked nicely...



SIGH!



Fine, I forgive you!



Now get out of here before I change my mind.



Thank you, God. You're swell!



I am, am I? You wouldn't know it from the angry content of some of the letters in this inbox.Well, you've got "a lot on your plate," as they say, what with war and air pollution, etc.



Oh, listen, you don't know the half of it.



And to top it off, I rather uncharacteristically snapped at Gabriel this morning, so I'll have to set aside time this afternoon to make that up to him.



But I thought God was perfect.



Well, yes, "at the end of the day," I'm perfect, so to speak, in the sense that I eventually triumph over everything and everybody, but... How can I put this? Even an ultimately undefeated football team can be "trailing "at half-time, right? -- even a batter who's about to hit a home run can be down 0 and 2 in the count before he finally "connects"-- even a -- But I trust that you understand my sports analogy?



Of course.



And if that answer doesn't satisfy you, just put my actions down to the trite but true observation that I personally work in quote-unquote "mysterious ways,"yes?



Right, now off you go



Goodbye, then



Yes, goodbye.

SIGH!



Well, I'd better get this over with.(It's so humiliating when an infallible deity such as myself has to eat crow like this!)







Hello, Israfel? Put me through to Gabriel, will you? Yes, I'll hold (What a life!)







Copy of webmaster's latest disingenuous invitation to "swap links," copied from e-mail received August 16, 2007, in which Brian learned that, despite his best efforts to disguise the fact, his site has been found to be "sufficiently related" to the subject of "car roof racks" to warrant its inclusion on the links page of some no-doubt useful British online resource known as Leisure Shack.

Dear Sir/Madam,



My name is Webmaster. I am contacting you on behalf of www.leisureshack.co.uk



I have visited your site and believe that your site is sufficiently related to merit a link request and wondered if you would consider it. We are trying to develop a relevant resource for our visitors and feel that your site meets that criteria.



Would you consider a link exchange with our website?



My reciprocal link information is as follows:



Title: Car roof rack and van roof rack



Description: Roof rack & bars, roof boxes, cycle and bike carriers from Thule, Mont Blanc & Karrite. Buy a Thule Roof rack & Bosal Exhausts for car and vans.



URL: http://www.leisureshack.co.uk



Please send me your Link information so that we could also link you back here: http://www.leisureshack.co.uk/products/links.htm



Thank you very much for your time.



Respectfully,



Webmasterwww.leisureshack.co.uk



P.S. Although I hate unsolicited email as much as the next person, I felt a link exchange between our sites would be mutually beneficial. Nevertheless, please let me know if you are not interested in a link exchange with our site and I will personally remove you from any mailing lists. Thanks again.

Why, bless their heart: they didn't want to inconvenience me in the least. See? They SAID so! They just naturally assumed, however (quoi plus naturel?), that anyone with a philosophical "bent" such as mine must, logically speaking, be vitally interested in the subject of roof racks. (True, the connection would not necessarily be obvious to the layperson, but a thorough reading of Berkeley's criticism of Locke will make all things clear -- that and a few swigs of some very potent whiskey, indeed.)