Not to put too fine a point on it, the lack of action is your fault, not Rand Paul's. He's more than done his part. He's offered a rallying point for anyone who cares about the issue, and he's elucidated in the most detailed way possible just what the hazards are. He's actually stopped the machine for a moment, and all you can manage is to diss him for too little, too late?

Look, I don't even like the guy. He stands for a lot of things that I fundamentally oppose. But I respect him. At least he is willing to do politics using the machine the way it was designed, rather than breaking it further—which is what the rest of the right-wing establishment seems to want to do.

Rand Paul is someone I feel I could reason with on most matters. I can't say that of most other politicians. And the fact that you're damning him with faint praise is actually enabling the others and contributing to the sense of futility that pervades so much of modern political discourse today.

If you ever meet another person that is also a regular of MSNBC's audience and regular reader of bible-prophecy.com, MARRY them. Right away.

And if you meet such a person, I'll bet they're a Rand Paul supporter. Probably want a Rand Paul/Alex Jones ticket.

Or a just plain nutz sites like DailyKos, Lucianne, or the festering pit called DemocraticUnderground?

Here is the link to http://www.bible-prophecy.com/. Note the biggest headline.

You really want to go nutz for nutz with me?

How exactly would raising funds for his political campaign help him personally?

He can donate the money to his Rand PAC (http://www.randpac.com/) or just let it sit there for future elections. He becomes more influential by virtue of that money. He can use it to generate support for a bid for certain Senate committee positions. When you have money to distribute to other political purposes, you have the juice that creates power. Most important, he can do what his father did and just make personal money by selling his campaign donor mailing list.

Did you know even retired politicians can keep their campaign fundraising going? They can keep fundraising even after retired and can use that money for other politicians political purposes.

There are PODCASTS with larger audiences than MSNBC, dude.

Now that you mention it, Rand Paul's filibuster made it to MSNBC, too.

He got his facetime on the TV and that's all that matters.

[note: Rand Paul's filibuster is actually the lead story on bible-prophecy.com right now]

The only problem with this story is that pandering to "bitcoin dudebros" is widely known to not be a way to electoral success, and if Paul is really just a shrewd grifter that you paint him, he knows that, as well.

Paul doesn't expect electoral success at the Presidential level. He expects fund-raising success.

Think for a minute of all the presidential candidates who know they're not going to win the nomination, but realize that a lucrative donor list is the next best thing. Rand Paul is one of those. He's building a nice packet for the future.

I've seen quite a bit of coverage including major political sites like DrudgeReport

"Drudge Report"? How about NewsMax and jbs.org? Did you see it on those major political sites, too? Maybe a major political site like bible-prophecy.com?

So while of course some element of it is PR, that is not the core reason as to why he did this.

And you know this how?

You can recognize a public figure's cult status when their followers start to claim they know what's in his heart and mind.

Rand Paul is a grandstander in the Barack Obama mold. He is sound and fury signifies fuck-all but lip-service to a dimwitted ideology that I wonder if he even believes. It's almost as if some consultant told him that the only demographic where he has a chance is bitcoin dudebros and so he has these little events to check off the box.

Hey, they stopped the Senate from screwing anything up for 10 hours. That sounds like an accomplishment to me.

Nobody here is going to get that, and tragically and alas, I am without mod points at this moment. But take comfort in the knowledge, sjames, that somewhere on the internet, someone LOLed.

Also, Mojolicious.

Oh - and Mojolicious.

Okay, seriously: Mojolicious is an excellent and fast way to jump from legacy Perl to modern, rapid turn-around, DevOpsy kinds of web work. I've written a fairly non-trivial web service in it, and it's everything a (Perl) guy could want. The documentation is a little opaque; the authors assumes too much knowledge about the approaches he's taking, but once you learn his... uh.. dialect, I guess.... Once you get the way he expresses stuff, it's pretty easy to do non-trivial work with it.

Also, learn CouchDB or similar, because NoSQL and regexes can do wonderful things together when you're dealing with large amounts of heterogeneous data. And just because some new things are actually worth it, start learning NodeJS and Angular (or similar), because they incorporate some very cool—and accessible—new approaches to things that will appeal to a dyed-in-the-wool PerlMonger.

Me? I'm a 51 year old ex-Web guy who just recently decided to move on to entirely new things after facing a similar dilemma, so pardon my hypocrisy. If I were to stay in software, that's what I'd be doing. :-)

Clearly, the principal is an absolute goof. It's high school sports, for chrissake. I mean, I know it's Texas and all, and in Texas, high school football is sacramental, but geez. It's bad enough that public universities have become big-money football programs with a little school on the side, but can you at least pretend that high school sports is about the students and not about revenue or aggrandizing adults?

Let it go, or maybe next time the kid will post the pictures he has of the football coach snapping towels and playing grabass in the showers with the defensive secondary.

Here's what I've learned:

1) Being able to do something is good.
2) Being able to teach someone else how to do something is better.
3) Being able to convince someone to do something is best of all.

In other words, think about whether maybe you should move to management. Do you still really want to write code? I'll bet you've developed some skills over the years that would serve you well in management. And the most important thing to remember is, don't be the manager that you always hated.

Think about your future. Not just what you want to do today, but how you see yourself in a few years. I know it's a cliche that everybody gets asked at interviews, but you've got to be willing to give yourself an honest answer.

Fair enough.

Son, it sounds to me like you're ready to play Saint's Row.

Saint's Row IV is my jam. It's one of a handful of games I consider favorites. The story had a deep sense of humanity, forgiveness, ridiculousness and understanding. When older Shaundi learns to forgive her younger self (in the middle of a attack on a psycho DJ and his minions in which a dubstep gun is used), one of the deepest moral and human lessons in videogame history was on display: never hold a grudge against your younger self.

Saint's Row IV was made with such care and moral understanding, from top to bottom and with such terrific humor that it's a little bit of perfection. Everything from 8-bit platforming to 3D platforming to 1stperson, 3rd person, racing, shooting, fighting and obscene gestures are in the game. It was a wonderful kitchen sink gaming experience, and I ended up with affection for each and every character (including the villain).

During the final credits where they all do a Soul Train line dance, I actually teared up. 10/10.