The Bored Blog

The Libertarians invite Willie Nelson to their convention June 30th, 2008   [Ron Paul has ended his run for president, this time.] http://blog.washingtonpost.com by Mary Ann Akers Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) may have ended his presidential campaign, but the libertarian gadfly isn’t exactly going quietly into the good night. Not without a lot of smoke, anyway. Paul, the only presidential candidate currently on the New York Times best seller list (8 weeks in a row), is not only planning a book

To the surprise of no one in the affiliate marketing industry, the Google Adsense Referrers program officially enters the deadpool. This service will be reborn as the Google Affiliate Network using the property Google acquired from the DoubleClick.com deal in March 2008 for $3.1 Billion. Google now is a serious player in the affiliate ad space and it will be fun to see if they integrate this into other properties such as adsense and youtube. I would love to have one place to be able to manage

This post is long - the type of post that it is easy to skip past. Yet, I think it has some useful information for those who have asked a question or two about how to actually motivate atheists and secularists. A member of the studio audience wrote to me expressing disappointment that so few people seemed interested in the Pledge Project in specific - or motivating atheists in general. He wondered why this was the case, and what can be done to change it. In light of this question, I want to s

So, again, here is retired General Clark on Face the Nation Sunday expressing unstinting admiration for Young Johnny McCranky's courageous military service but insisting that none of his that service is relevant to the job of presiding over the national security of the U.S. And then here's the howling horde of Media Infotainmenteers, braying that McCranky the war hero has been swiftboated! Over there in the corner is candidate Obama whistling "Yankee Doodle" while General Clark is kneecapped, b

And even though every right winger approved of the Swiftboating of Kerry, they’ve realized the error of their ways right now. And, of course, this is all because what pissed off Democrats most about the attacks on Kerry were insinuations that his service wasn’t enough by itself to qualify him for the presidency. That was what pissed them off, not the fact that the Swiftboaters fabricated and lied about Kerry’s record. Of course, Republicans know it isn’t the same thing; here’s our friend Dan

Stanley Fish has given the world a one-paragraph summation of how academic objectivity in the college classroom should look: A classroom discussion of Herbert Marcuse and Leo Strauss, for example, does not (or at least should not) have the goal of determining whether the socialist or the conservative philosopher is right about how the body politic should be organized. Rather, the (academic) goal would be to describe the positions of the two theorists, compare them, note their place in the hist

From my Middle East Peace Forum... Antiwar.com Action Alert Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week Introduced less than a month ago, Resolution 362, also known as the Iran War Resolution, could be passed by the House as early as next week. The bill is the chief legislative priority of AIPAC. On its Web site, AIPAC endorses the resolutions as a way to ''Stop Iran's Nuclear Program" and tells readers to lobby Congress to pass the bill. In the Senate, a sister resolution, Resolution

Bangkok Post in an editorial: The government has arrogantly ignored the opinions of the nation by not even seeking them. It has immersed the country in yet another new and divisive battle that ridicules Mr Samak's claim last year that he could reunite Thais. Relations with Cambodia are sinking fast and Thais are reduced to hoping that the politicians in Phnom Penh - who are in the midst of an election campaign - can keep the lid on the ultra-nationalists there. Through it all, Mr Samak, coalitio

Zoe Strauss makes a well reasoned argument on her blog regarding the 2008 presidential election. If her logic doesn't sway you, how about this? Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're gett

Democratic Senate candidates (non-incumbent), campaign contributions from Cable/Telecom PACs, expressed positions on net neturality and candidate contacts: Candidate State Contributions from Telecom/Cable Position Contact the campaign Allen ME $0 Favors Begich AK $0 Favors Conley SC $0 Uncommitted Contact Bob Conley Figures AL $0 Uncommitted Contact Vivian Figures Fleming MS(A) No data Uncommitted Contact Erik Fleming Franken MN $62,650 Uncommitted Contact Al Franken Hagen NC