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Is this how some candidates are claiming to have “vast grassroots support”: by purchasing the services of commercialized keyboard commandos?

It does kinda make sense, I suppose. I mean, there is at least one “front-runner” candidate for President who hasn’t filed the official paperwork, and this could be why that hasn’t happened yet. Because while he’s an undeclared candidate, he can spend money on whatever and not have to report it. After he becomes an official candidate, if it turned out that he was paying a firm to hire “professional bloggers” to set up bogus blogs and otherwise shill for him across the Internet without it being legitimate “grassroots” at all, then there would become something of a public image issue.

When Fala jumped up on Franklin Roosevelt’s lap and started yapping into the microphone during FDR’s “fireside chat” that time, Americans knew it was unrehearsed and sincere. When Nixon ...

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Free Online Dating

Mingle2 – Free Online Dating

Click on the image to see how your blog rates. I ran this with a few friends and I got several other PGs, a couple of Gs, two Rs and I am shocked to report that a hard NC-17 was discovered! I ain’t saying who though… 😉

If I’d ran this a year ago, The Knight Shift would probably have been an R. Or at least a PG-13. Like to think that it’s a good sign. Thanks to Shane Thacker for the find (yeah right like I came across this ‘cuz it’s offered by a dating service… 🙂

EDIT 07-05-2007 12:06 a.m. EST: The “rating sign” is missing most of the time when the page loads. All it shows then is the “dating service” link. But trust me, it’s there. Guess their server is getting slammed with rating requests....

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See those ads for John McCain that pops up every now and then? I didn’t put them there. Didn’t want them and don’t ever want them. In a few hours they should hopefully go away for good.

This blog will not be used to promote any presidential candidates. Unless there is one that really, really impresses me with sincerity, humbleness and ability. But that will not be John McCain or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or just about any of the other “front-runners” we’re supposed to buy into.

Up ’til now, the ads that have appeared on this blog, I really didn’t give much thought to them. That’s changing starting now. If there is an ad for something that I don’t approve of that’s appearing on here, it’s going to get zapped off the site....

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If you’re a regular reader you’ve no doubt noticed the new title graphic. I thought I’d shamelessly capitalize on getting recognized by The New York Times a few months ago for my school board campaign, and on what more people are telling me that I might have a pretty strong case for being the first known blogger with proof of it. This site gets tons of visitors each day, mostly because of only a handful of articles that have been here for awhile. So yeah, I’m trying to increase my regular readership 🙂

Anyway, that won’t be the only thing changing around here. The next few days are going to be spent playing around with the layout and other elements on this blog. That new title might not even last for very long. Since the last time this blog got a new look over a year ago, so much has ...

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Shane Thacker has coined a whole new term. Yesterday I reported here how Knight’s Corner – maintained by yours truly starting in the fall of 1994 – might have been the world’s very first real blog. Which would in effect make me the world’s first real blogger, if this counts. Shane brings up the point that Knight’s Corner, although it had all the functions and features of modern blogging, started out on a BBS (bulletin board system).

So… if it wasn’t a weblog (“blog”) because the Web wasn’t readily available at the time…

…was Knight’s Corner really the world’s first and only-ever BBSlog, or “slog”?

I think Shane is right: Knight’s Corner was definitely a slog. But since it migrated to the web as soon as could be managed (which included the same photo of me by the way) it counts as a very early blog also.

Maybe ...

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This isn’t something to be making a post about unless there was serious documentation backing it up. And I wouldn’t be claiming to be this for “bragging rights” either. Rather, it’s purely for the sake of history that I would want to come forward with this and add it for consideration in our dialogue about such things.

But I will admit: when it dawned on me yesterday about what I was doing over 12 years ago, and how that has now become such a routine part of life today when at the time it was pretty unusual, I did feel a little bit of pride at the prospect. A guy can be afforded that much, can’t he? 🙂

So here’s the tale about how your friend Chris Knight may have started the world’s very first blog… ever.

How do we define “blog”?
Something needs to be addressed first though: how ...

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Found this article at The State’s website:

Internet’s anonymity leads to nasty comments

By JOCELYN NOVECK
The Associated Press

When a California woman recently gave birth to a healthy baby just two days after learning she was pregnant, the sudden change to her life was challenging enough. What April Branum definitely didn’t need was a deluge of nasty Internet comments.

Postings on message boards made cracks about Branum’s weight (about 400 pounds — one reason she says didn’t realize sooner she was pregnant). They also analyzed her housekeeping ability, based on a photo of her home.

And they called her names. “A pig is a pig,” one person wrote. Another suggested that she “go on the show ‘The Biggest Loser.'”

“The thing that bothered me most was, people assumed because I am overweight, I’m going to be a bad mom,” Branum says. “And that is not one little bit

...
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I was in France years ago. It’s a nice place that gets too much of a bad rap: I found the people to be quite friendly (and the food there is delicious). But when they screw up… maaaaan can they do it bigtime. The French government has made it illegal for anyone other than “professional journalists” to video or otherwise document acts of violence.

First of all, what the hell is a “professional journalist”? Journalism isn’t something you’re supposed to have a license to practice. You don’t even need a formal education to be one. Just go out and find stuff and then share what you got with others. It can be either something you do full-time for pay or something you simply do for the love and passion of it (which is what I’m doing presently).

Smells about time that them French peoples have another revolution, if they’re ...

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