Odometer readings

Well, it looks like the odometer on my blog has turned 1,000 clicks today. I'd like to thank the academy, professional society of choice for all those who frequent my site. This is one odometer reading that'll never be rolled back.

Prophecy

Some bloggers harbor fantasies of grandeur. A blog can be an altar to its owner's ego, electronically incarnate. Well, that's cool by me. My blog is no different. It reflects my ego in all its resplendence. And my blog not only harbors fantasies of grandeur; it predicts the future.

What? Doubt overtakes the reader? Reservation rears its ugly head? Disbelief pollutes the visitor's resolve to take, on faith, my claims?

Read this link and weep, friends. It predates this Salon article by nearly a year. [Salon requires all nonsubscribers to view an online ad before they can access the magazine's site for free for one day. Do it. You won't be disappointed.] Yours truly anticipated the salient issue of this season's presidential campaign nearly a year in advance of the cognoscenti who squawk their lightweight analyses over our public air waves and splay their mugs across my television screen.

Yeah. I conceived the notion nearly a year in advance.

"But Brent," the reader pants, "The link I just clicked on took me to an old blog entry of yours from late January 2004. That's not 'nearly a year,' as you say. It is, at best, a good seven months."

Ha! January 2004's entry is merely a slightly revised take on what I wrote in September 2003. While you need to sign up (and pay a fee) to read the whole thing from September 2003, the lead paragraph, visible to all Web surfers, Blogit members or not, says it all.

No less than the juggernaut of girlie manliness is our foe this November. Relent, false patriarchs. It's all over. You lose.

Ralph Nader: the underminer

My pal over at The Chronic Curmudgeon has told me that the Republican political machine uses data mining techniques to spread word about itself across cyberspace. Basically, right-wing computer experts mine the Web for words associated with the conservative cause, e.g., "President Bush," "WMD in Iraq," and so forth. Readers can thank these neocon data miners for the right-wing banner ads that occupy the top of this site despite my blog's decidedly left-wing bent.

The plot thickens. Two days ago I posted a rant against Ralph Nader's quixotic--some would say, myopic, if not downright idiotic--candidacy for the Presidency of the United States of America. Today, banner ads for Nader's campaign were strewn across the top of this blog.

Data mining must cost a pretty penny. How much money does Nader have? Not much, right? He's only a grassroots operation, for Pete's sake. He couldn't possibly afford the technology, and if he were doing data mining on the cheap, my site wouldn't have shown up on radar yet.

Oh! Wait a minute! Conservative groups are supporting Nader's campaign. Now I understand.

Way to go, Ralph. Whip out the big guns, why don't you? Those Republicans couldn't possibly have ulterior motives.

Links

Folks, I've added a few links along the right-hand column of this page. These are pages I frequent and admire. Many belong to friends -- online, off-line, or a hybrid of the two. Other links send Web surfers to various bastions of information or political thought.

Apparently, Ralph Nader really is an a-hole

A friend of mine once told me, and I've always suspected it. Apparently, Ralph Nader really is an asshole.

It's not just me. Lots of people think it. Hell, even Bob Weir, high priest of the '60s pop culture left, now says it. To wit, absorb the following, gleaned from the August 2nd New York Daily News:

The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir is pleading with Deadheads everywhere not to vote
for Ralph Nader. Performing on Saturday in Boston, Weir told the band's
followers to be sure to vote, but then exorted, "Don't vote for Nader. I know
him. He's an a--hole," our spies tell us. The band then broke into "Johnny B.
Goode," a theme song of the Kerry-Edwards campaign ...

That's right. Read it again. Bob Weir, the late Jerry Garcia's right-hand man, has finally said what a bunch of us have been saying for a while: Ralph Nader is an asshole.

It's amazing, isn't it? I bet it makes you want to throw away all your "Dick's Picks" bootlegs, doesn't it?

Feel free to share this new information with all your friends at the underground college radio meeting. The implications are enormous, you ecstacy-popping, some-university-in-Vermont-attending, ailing-15-year-old-Saab-900-from-mommy-with-a-mountain-bike-on-top-driving faux hippie on the eight-year college plan who feigns a nuanced understanding of the political process in this country.

I know. Last time you thought it was hip to vote for Nader. "All the cool people are doing it," you told your fellow pot heads, back in the day, as you ate your couscous-centric meal sans meat.

Well, lay off the THC for a little while so I can lay it on ya'. Nader has absolutely no chance of winning this time around. He'll only hurt John Kerry's chances. In fact, guess what? A vote for Nader will...drum roll, please...keep George W. Bush in power.

If you're still unconvinced, just remember: Nader is now, officially, an asshole. Bobby Weir says so. Oh, did I mention that Weir's a vegetarian pot head, just like you? Yeah, dude. It's that authentic.

If Bush wins because of you, the rebelling twit living off the family trust fund, I hope he shuts down your stupid radio station. I can't stand the stupid music it plays, anyway. And I only wish Bush then replaces your stupid little underground radio station with "24-7 Rush Limbaugh."

Play hard

You must live one day at a time. Anything else is too fast, as in, literally.