Wow with that kinda money I could get a kickass server, a sweet pipeline, and take time off work to write my own optimized blogging software.

*sigh*
damn... if only... but then, i never expected to get rich off the ufo nuts.

Wow. No kidding. Maybe I should work on my blog a little harder.

Well anyway, I got Bill $20 closer. Would be more but I'm not the highest paid person in the world. By quite a few million.

Good luck, Bill. Dunno if I got you all that close to 200 grand, but you'd deserve that if you got it...

Thanks! We're going for a million!

I'm trying. The "make a donation" button is not working. I'll keep trying.

Bandwidth offer still standing in lieu of money.

Bill:

It was great following that wave with you and Charles and Allah and all the rest. Here's another $20. This whole story is about so much more than forgeries and fraud. Why hesitate to say it:

The blogosphere has come of age.

JdB

Done. The problem is maybe not that the "make a donation" button is not working, but that your site takes FOR. EVER. to load (on dialup, in Greece). So, o.k.; worth it.

Lol, thanks!

The funniest thing about Sullivan's "pledge drive" was that immediately after completing it he took a month off! Nervy.

Well I guess since you've been hosting my link whoring, I should send you something. Nice work, Bill. A token contribution is on the way!

The contribution differences might go back to the root of what makes a lefty tick versus what makes a righty tick (and I’m not talking about the blood sucking, Lyme disease carrying parasites).

Like the theories that lefties really want to be a part of something big, they’re joiners, they love to hear someone tell them the things they want to hear, the whole “give me a hand out and I’ll give you a vote” quid pro quo, thing, etc. They’ll pay good money to be stoked and stroked. I don’t think those traits apply nearly as strongly to conservatives, libertarians, or moderates.

So unless you want to cross over and become a panderer/propagandist whore, you may be doomed to pull in less cash than the lefties.

Andrew Sullivan is(mostly)a rightie.

There goes your partisan theory.

We contributed to Andrew several times because we so appreciated his work. The sudden influx of funds must have somehow messed up his head because he started boring us with endless harangues
on gay marriage.

Note: He didn't get married while spending the summer at Provencetown which is located in the Commenwealth of Massuchusetts where gay marriage has been declared legal by the courts.

We have learned our lesson and will refrain from sending you any money because we fear that your mental health might be negatively impacted as well.

Well then ERP, send it to us! Because, as anyone who's ever visited the site knows, we're already screwed up... plus we could us it... lol

It would be nice to see Bill surpass Andrew...

Andrew's gone off the deep end and his letting the gay marriage issue cloud his judgement on other matters...

There's nothing wrong if he wants to be a single issue voter, and nothing wrong is that is his issue, but he should preface almost all of his commentary on Bush vs Kerry by the disclaimer that for him Bush's opposition to gay marriage is going to color his commentary on all other issues...

erp -

Um, thanks for caring.

You make an awful good point.

Hey, there’s a bigger question here. Just because I got one little detail wrong, doesn’t change the facts of a story which we all know to be true.

Er, uh, well, maybe it does.

I have only visited Andrew’s site a couple of times, and it was probably always through links associated with the gay marriage thing. His writing didn't trip my trigger, so I never read more than a couple sentences. I just assumed that he was a leftie (not that there is anything wrong with that). I should have done more research. Mea culpa, begging forgiveness, etc.

He's brilliant, and one of the best writers I've ever come across. But he's gone a bit overboard in the last 6 months.

Sullivan was always over-rated, and he has lost a lot of credibility lately. If he does makes any money at what he does, i would say he's overpaid.

As for me i get by on the occasional compliment, which is reward enough, i think.

You have a pretty name, and you're certainly good enough to be on my blogroll.

(That should tide you over)

I, and Mrs. Rover, are disgusted by Sullivan's disingenuousness. He OFTEN has complained of limited funds, and we have given to him more than once in the past. He describes his income as modest... $200,000 a year is modest?!?!?!

Mind you, I have no problem with anyone making as much as they can. But to deliberately mislead contributors as to how much one makes is unconscionable.

Plus, a 'pledge drive' in and of itself implies a non-profit entity... once again, a cunning little sleight of hand. If we'd known he was grossing 200 large, and keeping 199 1/2 large, we wouldn't have given. I guess he knew that. Ugh... I feel dirty.

He is dead to us now. Thanks for the heads-up... incoming $$$!

Working on it, Bill. The spouse and I make our "charitable giving" decisions together, and I'm trying to convince him to let me divert our Minnesota Public Radio pledge to blogs this year. (Well, some of it anyway. "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" is surely worth something.)

(If it means anything to you, I never read your blog before RatherGate, but I've enjoyed it so much it's now on my list of dailies.)

Hey thanks. Not sure if I can keep up this pace for much longer (without dropping dead), but I try ...

Well, I have spent 2-3 hours reading Andrew's stuff. I rate it as B to B+. IMO, he makes some sense, and has a few really good points. But he comes off as a bit too whiney for my taste. And I don't like the way he turns a phrase. I think that is what kept me from reading him further in the first place.

It is clear to me that you are a better investigator, and a much better writer, Bill.

50 crisp ones coming your way (just maintain my anonymity, please).

Don't know much about Sullivan, but
a) bandwidth/hosting really isn't so expensive you need a pledge drive. ie. there are a ton of blogs.

b) if you have enough traffic to have real bandwidth problems you can probably get advertisments to help pay for it.

I never caught the Sullivan bug. I looked at his site once and was sorta repelled. I believe what moreorless "captured" as fans some among the right as readers of Sullivan, by Sullivan, is his lately revealed flirtations of the sexual kind. Being blunt here, but, you male readers were visibly snookered. The guy flirts with other guys and it destructs the value to my read. So I didn't read his site. For that reason. I'm a female, perhaps that's why...but I do believe that Sullivan waged a flirt campaign with and among conservative male readers and that's where his popularity existed.

I write "existed" because, what with his recent expose, he's rightfully lost faith with many conservative readers -- but, the thing is, Sullivan gathered you all there at the outset and then sprang upon you his "plan" afterward. Which is, again, an act of snookery. Or, maybe on the street they call that something else. Either way, you all got reeled in.

Bill,

I won't use paypal, but if you email me an address I'll drop a $20 in the mail.