Andrew Rotramel, an independent Presidential candidate from Pasadena, Texas, believes in the rights of all citizens. In fact, he believes in them so much that he'd like to add a whole new bill of rights to the Constitution. Also on tap: good news for Noam Chomsky and Palestinians, plus legalized drugs and prostitution.
>>Read the interview>>

I've officially been running site statistics for one whole month now (Level 10 Hit Counter), and looking through referral statistics can be, shall we say, eye opening.

Not so very long ago, I wrote about a press release from Lycos, in which the company expressed surprise that CNN and FoxNews personalities such as Rudi Bakhtiar, Paula Zahn and others get more web searches than established colleagues such as Barbara Walters. I surmised this was a result of testosterone-rich men searching for nude photos. Since then, I've received dozens of hits from Google, Yahoo Search, MSN Search and AOL Search for phrases such as "Rudi Bakhtiar fake nude," "Ashleigh Banfield nude image," "Suze Orman nude photos," "ladies of Fox News naked" and "Robin Meade lesbian." All of which, I suppose, goes to prove my point, but makes me feel sorry for the poor souls who have visited my site in search of revealing photos of news personalities. Even more so, now that I've discussed the subject again. So, to those of you who are here hoping to see Rudi Bakhtiar doing a lap dance: sorry. I'm opposed to that kind of thing. If you find photos of Paula Zahn in revealing lingerie, please e-mail me the address immediately so I can ... um ... send an e-mail protest to the site's sponsors. Yeah, that's it.

I also need to make a special apology to the person (or persons) with a relentless fixation on television anchors and appendages; numerous searches for "Robin Meade legs," "Paula Zahn legs," "Rudi Bakhtiar legs," and "Suze Orman legs" have ended in bitter frustration amid the relatively banal and gams-free pages of tlhines.com.

What are the most interesting search strings that have brought visitors to tlhines.com? Let's start with "2004 e-mail addresses of pot producers in china" at Google. There I am at number 10, pulling in the masses of people who search for such information. At Yahoo, someone found me by searching for "Chicago blog penis was too big." Hey, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that "penis too big" comment. At MSN Search, someone looking for information on "nuns in Caribou, Maine" found my home on the web. Good thing, since I happen to be the world's foremost expert on the subject.

Most surprising search? "Jude Allman Lazarus" at Google UK: "Jude Allman" is the name of the main character in my as-yet unsold novel Waking Lazarus. Why is someone searching for this information in the UK? Beats me, but I'd be happy to send him/her the manuscript if he/she is interested in repping it.

And finally: most disturbing has to be "mutilate castrate torture" search string from Google. I'm not sure if it was more disturbing that someone was looking for that information, or that I actually created a post that had all three of those words in it.

I also receive steady traffic from blogging friends and neighbors; that blogrolling stuff actually seems to work, so I'll take this opportunity to thank (and link to) bloggers who have brought double-digit traffic to my humble abode in the past month: One Hand Clapping, Ed Kemmick's City Lights, mtpolitics.net, Parkway Rest Stop, Dim Sum Diaries, Rocket Jones, Secular Franciscan, Wulfgar, Better Living Through Blogging, Big Sky Dave, Ministry of Minor Perfidy, Billings News, Sugarmama, Unbillable Hours, Sarpy Sam, and Big Skies.

As often as not, I'm finding referrers come from comments I've left on other sites (yeah, I suppose everyone knows that). Surprisingly, though, I seem to have a fair amount of lurkers--folks who read, but aren't compelled to comment (perfectly fine). According to my site statistics, I've had 633 unique visitors in the last month, but comments from less than 10 of them. Hmm. I guess that's what you'd call the silent majority.

Another surprising statistic: almost a full one-quarter (24.8%) of all visits have no referrers, meaning people type in the address manually. Is that typical? Perhaps some of you more enlightened blogging veterans can shed light on this for me.

Now, back to searching for photos of Paula Zahn in--er, I mean, working.

Read the interview at: http://www.tlhines.com/darkhorse/000094.html

Dear Makers of Axe Anti-perspirant:

While reading a magazine recently, I came across your ad for Axe Anti-perspirant headlined "Dry Pits Win." I believe too much advertising today focuses on unrealistic body images, trying to associate products with sex appeal: "Use our product, and you will become a chiseled hunk who draws women from miles around." You, however, have chosen to break that mold, with an ad whose underlying message seems to be: "Use Axe anti-perspirant, and you will become a hairy torso with no head, arms or genitalia."

It's refreshing to see a company who has the courage to portray users as mutated freaks of nature. I applaud you for your unique strategy.

Sincerely,

TL Hines

Donald Sauter, an independent presidential candidate from Baltimore, Maryland, is a man with a plan. A simple plan. A simple, wonderful plan. All he needs is a good phone system, the internet, and a couple hundred million willing participants. Are you in? >>Read the Interview>>

According to a recent BBC news story, health officials are concerned about an alarming number of poverty-stricken UK youth using crisp packets (potato chip bags, to those of us across the pond) and cling film (plastic wrap) for contraception.

So is that how we get mini Doritos?

Seriously, though, reports such as these should raise questions--and I say this for reasons you're probably not thinking. If you read the story, you'll see the information is from generic sexual health experts: "Sexual health experts say these improvised contraceptives not only do not work - but do not offer protection against disease." Only one person is named, a Mr. Peter Greenhouse, who is merely identified as a "consultant." One telling line in the article, however, says "The Family Planning Association is calling for more government money for free contraceptives." Hmmm. Could the information for this article perhaps have come from the Family Planning Association? Could Peter Greenhouse perhaps be a consultant who works with this association? Could the association be trying to spin a bit of propaganda?

Perhaps, perhaps. Notice no studies are quoted, no statistics cited. I would suggest the Family Planning Association may be trying to get a bit of publicity, and spinning anecdotal stories into widespread practices to get more support for their cause. I'm not suggesting poor teens in the UK (or anywhere else, for that matter) have never used inappropriate contraception--including potato chip bags. I'm merely suggesting it may not be as widespread as the Family Planning Association would have us believe.

Not that we can blame the Family Planning Association; this is, after all, how the game is played today. Still, how many people read this kind of story and question its motivation? And even if the story is accurate, we might need to consider other implications.

For instance, let's go ahead and say the UK should offer free condoms to low-income youth. If so many of them are using potato chip bags for contraception, how can we be sure they won't use the condom packages instead of the condoms?

For other takes on this story, see An Englishman's Castle, Say Anything Blog and Die Puny Humans.

As you might have noticed by now, I've held my breath and plunged into the world of Movable Type. It has more bells and whistles to play with, and since the vast majority of serious bloggers seem to use it, I'm quite certain I'll be seen as serious, too.

Over the next few weeks, I'll try to migrate all the templates and such so everything matches and looks purty. In the meantime, however, you may notice some odd formatting, a missing image or two here and there, and various other glitches.

The only other issue is comments: it looks like all of my old comments are history, unless I get really ambitious and try to migrate those over, as well.

And I'm rarely ambitious.

What are the Dark Horse Dialogues?

Our first edition of the Dark Horse Dialogues features Kenneth Oliver Miller, a resident of Ambridge, Pennsylvania who's running for president as an independent. And if you think all presidential candidates are sourpusses who can only spew soundbites, Mr. Miller proves otherwise: he was quite the kidder with many of his responses.

At least, we hope he was kidding.

>>Read the Interview>>

Closer inspection of Janet Jackson's revealing performance at the Super Bowl shows it to be just another example of corporate sponsorship gone horribly awry.

Awards in Advertising Categories

’Ä¢ The "Let's Spend a Lot of Money on Production and Maybe No One Will Notice We've built an Expensive Ad around a Lame Joke" Award: Federal Express for "Alien Shipping." And by the way, Federal Express: we did notice.

’Ä¢ The "Best Ad Matched to Product's Intended Use" Award: Charmin Toilet Tissue's "Bear in the Game." It was absolute crap.

’Ä¢ The "Worst Use of Freudian Sexual Innuendo to Sell a Product" Award: "Mike Ditka's Levitra Challenge," in which Ditka sings the praises of an impotence drug while a football arcs through the hole of a tire again and again and again. Yeah, a football going through a tire. Get it? Get it?

’Ä¢ The "Trying Way Too Hard to be Likeable in a Desperate John Kerry Way" Award: A tie between "Soap in the Mouth" for Chevy Trucks, "Fight to the Death?" for Lay's, and pretty much anything for Pepsi and/or Sierra Mist.

’Ä¢ The "Why in the Hell are We Sitting in Bathtubs Watching the Sun Rise, and What Does it Have to Do With our Product?" Award: Cialis, also for male impotence.

Awards in Half Time Show Categories

’Ä¢ The "Best Argument for Allowing the American Flag to be Burned" Award: Kid Rock's stars-n-stripes ensemble.

’Ä¢ The "Celebrity Whose Singing Style Most Resembles an Orchestra Conductor on Meth" Award: P Diddy/Puff Daddy/Jigglypuff

’Ä¢ The "Best Reason to Drop to Knees and Thank God This Very Second" Award: Jessica Simpson was only allowed to utter six words: "Houston, are you ready to party?"

’Ä¢ The "Most Surprising Celebrity Appearance" Award: Janet Jackson's right breast.