Today alone there are like five stories about how Paul is outpacing the other candidates in terms of donations. Add that to the 4.2 million dollar day a while back and that’s pretty impressive.

But I’m not impressed.

We don’t need Paul to raise a lot of money. We need him to spend that money. We need to get his numbers up, and in order to do that he needs to be heard. So don’t tell me about what he’s raised. Tell me what he’s done with it.

If the CNN YouTube debate is any indication we are at a serious disadvantage due to bias. We need to be taking action immediately rather than rejoicing in the size of our coffers.:

This is what happens when cartoons fight real people.

We’ve all seen them — these contrived little mini-communities with perfect landscaping and uppity names. Here’s how to name one. Pick any two of the following things and put them together:

• Pine
• View
• Crest
• White
• Creek
• Manor
• Stone
• River
• Heights
• Brook
• Green
• Cedar
• Acres
• Meadow
• Haven
• Ridge

So, we end up with:

• Cresthaven
• Pineridge
• Cedarheights
• Brookstone
• [ etc., ad nauseam ]

And yes — I’m assuming Kucinich will be treated the same as Paul, i.e. like a threat to the establishment. Let’s assume he’s taken out of the running as well. What do we do then? Seriously.

Obama? Edwards?

I know it’s early, and I know it’s not time to give up on Paul and Kucinich, but what’s our backup plan? After the treatment Paul received in tonight’s debate we need to start thinking about it.:

Well Ron Paul didn’t do so well tonight in the debate. His positions were sound but he failed to win the battle of appearance — especially in the exchange with McCain about Iraq.

It’s disappointing. We have so little time to get noticed. I don’t think it was necessarily Ron’s fault, though; he didn’t get that much time and the crowd seemed visibly against him. How the crowd reacts to him shapes how the television viewers react. If I were a conspiracy guy I’d read something into that.

Oh well. Chin up. There are more opportunities to get the message out, and we must battle on.:

I’m trying some new stuff with AdSense both here on the site and in my feeds. Let me know if something breaks or gets too annoying.

These are the Martial Arts that I intend to learn at least the basics of:

• Tai Chi Chuan
• Aikido
• Wing Tsun
• Brazilian Jui-Jitsu
• Muay Thai

The one that I’ve always wanted to master is Tai Chi Chuan. I feel it has the best balance between exercise, meditation, and martial elements.

So what’s your favorite martial art?

It’s time to stop using “www” when referring to websites. It’s a waste of storage, a waste of ink, and it takes 2-5 times as long to pronounce as saying the domain by itself. Think about it: nine syllables to properly enunciate three characters. Enter no-www.

No-www is an initiative to make all websites accessible from both the http://www.example.com/ and http://example.com/ forms of their names. The reason behind it is to standardize domain names providing web content and to avoid typing unnecessary letters. — Wikipedia

The reason for using the “www” hostname prefix when entering websites is now a matter of history. It’s old, deprecated, outdated, and antiquated. Like websites that only work in Internet Explorer, sites that break when you use the domain alone should be firmly encouraged to join the 21st century.

Some argue that there is still a good reason to separate traffic destined to web servers from that destined to the domain itself. This is precisely the idea that’s become obsolete. The reason for that separation in the past was that HTTP (web traffic) used to be just one of many services that one could use for a given domain.

In other words, web traffic wasn’t particularly special so it didn’t make any sense to point it (or any other service) to the root of the domain by default.

Things are different now. Web traffic now dominates Internet use when it comes to user interaction. If someone is manually entering an address to reach a public site, the odds are very high that they’re visiting an organization’s web site rather than some other type of service. As such, directing users to an organization’s web content by default is a matter of obvious practicality. Adding the “www” has simply become superfluous.

This doesn’t mean we should abolish the use of hostnames. Hostnames are excellent tools for separating traffic and making meaningful associations with users. The argument here is simply for having the root of the domain point to the web content as a matter of convention.

So the next time you hear someone stumbling over “double-u, double-u, double-u”, just kindly inform them that it’s faster if they just go to the domain itself, and that for the majority of major sites the “www” isn’t needed anymore.:

A couple of my friends are trying to teach me to appreciate beer. I’m trying to teach a couple of my friends to appreciate Slayer. It’s the same.

I can’t find “flavor” within the overwhelming bitterness. They can’t hear “music” through screaming and guitars. It’s the same. We can’t find the signal within the noise.

The answer, in both cases, seems to be to subject yourself to enough of the noise that you’re able to tune it out and find what lies beneath.:

This country needs decent candidates more than it needs perfect ones. Paul and Kucinich have significant differences of opinion on various issues, and I disagree with both of them on some major points, but none of that matters.

They both have honest, thought-out opinions and are untethered to selfish external interests that aim to thrive at the country’s expense. Given the alternatives this alone makes them nearly divine.

If you support either candidate (Paul or Kucinich) you need to start viewing them as the same candidate. Normally that would be insane, but we aren’t dealing with anything “normal” here. We need to combine our efforts and thrust both of them into the mainstream dialogue.

Quite simply, if you care about changing America the way Paul and Kucinich speak of then support both candidates whenever possible. When they face each other in general elections then we’ll worry about their differences. Until then we’ve no room for debating subtleties; a unified approach pitting both of them against everyone else is our best hope for change.: