According to the LA Times, Ron Paul is no longer a fringe character:

For three decades, Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul’s extreme brand of libertarian economics consigned him to the far fringes even among conservatives. Not a few times, his views put him on the losing end of 434-1 votes on Capitol Hill.

No longer. With the economy still struggling and political divisions deepening, Paul’s ideas not only are gaining a wider audience but also are helping to shape a potentially historic battle over economic policy — a struggle that will affect everything including jobs, growth and the nation’s place in the global economy.

His warnings on deficits and inflation are now Republican mantras.

Read more at Mish.

The web is abuzz today over Google’s announcement that they have acquired Teracent. Teracent offers a technology to optimize display ads for click-thru in the same way that Google optimizes text ads. Teracent’s secret sauce is it’s ability to mix and match graphical elements to design new ads and then optimize their delivery. As Andy Beal puts it, it’s “multi-variate testing for your banner ads.” But multi-variate testing to what purpose? The only response Teracent can measure is clicks; so that’s what they measure. That’s fine if you are focused on direct response from your display ads, but in that case you are better off buying text ads. Text ads are cheaper, and likely just as, if not more effective.

Traditionally, display advertising has been about brand awareness. Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to measure that, and so it’s ignored by Teracent. My (relatively uninformed) guess is that Teracent will optimize these display ads towards those that have a direct call to action. If what the advertiser wants is a direct action that’s fine. But, if you want to launch a brand with this kind of display ads, then this kind of optimization won’t work.

Despite an attempt to add a crippling amendment, and the (surprise) opposition of Barney Frank, the bill passed. Here’s the Youtube video:

For more details, see Mish.

Hey, MobKool is available on the Kindle. Sign up here, and pay money for something you can read for free, but in a much less pretty format. I will really appreciate it.

Well, the FTC has just laid down a new policy requiring bloggers to reveal any payment (or free stuff) they receive to blog about any subject. For details, check out this post from Larry. So, here’s my disclosure. I’m ashamed to have to admit that I am so lacking in influence that nobody has ever given me anything, or paid me, to endorse anything. Too bad I’m not Mager.

Chris Arreola and Vitali Klitschko weighed in today for their heavyweight fight which occurs tomorrow. Arreola tried to have a little fun at the expense of all the people who said he was a fat, overweight fighter. Here’s the video:

Arreola looked better than he has in the past few fights, but he’s still at least ten pounds heavier than he should be. Here’s the fight prediction from Bad Left Hook. I predict either an early knockout of Arreola or a boring Klitschko decision.

Today was an extremely irritating day. Here’s a short list of all the things that irritated me today:

• Pervasive smell of popcorn at work. I hate the smell of popcorn, and when somebody makes it at work it’s impossible to avoid. Plus, burning popcorn is the number one cause of false fire alarms at work. Popcorn should be banned!
• Guy in men’s room talking on his phone at urinal throughout his entire “visit.” I have no idea what the guy on the other end of the call thought was going on. To cap it off, cell phone guy didn’t wash his hands on the way out. And, he needed to wash them. The phone was tucked under his shoulder; not held in hand.
• Women on train burbling into her cell phone and giving some poor victim an extended review of the wine tasting she went to last night. Ever since I worked in a wine store in college, I have hated having to listen to idiots go on about “blackberry undertones” and “woody elements.”
• Insane Russian woman in next seat who used the excuse of asking if the train stopped at Palo Alto to launch into a 45 minute monologue on the unfairness of asking her to take an AIDs test before she came to America.
• Old guy sitting next to me who was not only a serial cougher who never covered his mouth, but was also apparently a student of the Larry Craig wide stance school of sitting.
• Lastly, myself, for being too stupid to think of changing out of my work shoes prior to cleaning up fifty pounds of rotting apples from my garden.
• In addition, an honorable mention goes to Mager for tweeting about how pleasant his train ride was during my train ride from hell.

In any event, tomorrow can only get better.

So, Orly Taitz has released a picture of what is purportedly a certified copy of a Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Obama. You can see it at WorldNet Daily. Before everyone gets too excited, here’s a few things to consider:

• Kenya didn’t become a republic until December 1964. The birth certificate is dated in February 1964.
• Reportedly, the name of the certifying clerk, E.F Lavender, is also the name of a common detergent in Kenya
• The certificate# 44 0 47 is laughable: 44 = he’s the 44th US President, O = Obama & 47 = his age.
• The book number listed is 44B. That’s 44 – he’s the 44th US President, B = Barack.

All in all, a lot of suggestions it’s a fake.

What are the limits of fair use on the web? If a journalist or blogger puts a lot of effort into a story, which is then summarized by a much more popular blog, are they being ripped off. Ian Shapiro, of the Washington Post, is debating this question right now in regards to Gawker’s summary of a story he wrote. Here’s the best analysis of the debate I could find: Gawker and the Washington Post: a Case Study in Fair Use.