LST launches 2006 Fall Begathon
by David Benzion · 11/06/2006 12:10 amWelcome to our 2006 Fall Begathon!
Twice a year–just like National Public Radio–we interrupt our ideologically one-sided crap to harass you for money.
But what makes LST’s Begathon different?
- First, unlike NPR, LST receives absolutely no government funding at all; in fact, not a single dollar flows into our pockets from government coffers against the will of ideologically dissenting taxpayers. Trust us, we’ve looked into the possibility. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist.
- Secondly, LST’s Begathon doesn’t have high-profile law firms or energy companies making “challenges” to the audience, offering to match every donation made by listeners/readers in the next hour. Listen to NPR’s Begathon and it seems like every member of the Greater Houston Partnership is trying to smarm their way into the public’s good graces by proclaiming “See how enlightened and community minded we are? We support public radio!” The executives at those same companies read LST too–we can tell by monitoring our visitors’ IP and email addresses–but none of them clamor to take a high profile role in our Begathon. No, they go out to the theatre with NPR, then stop by LST in the wee hours of the morning for their tawdry thrills. We are the law firm and energy companies’ cheap blog-whore, the information source they can’t allow themselves to be seen with in public. That’s OK. We probably deserve it.
- Unlike NPR, we’re funny.
- Unlike NPR, we’re honest about our bias.
- On NPR you can listen to Daniel Schorr; on LST, you can look at the Conservative T-Shirt Girl
You get the idea–they suck, we don’t, now give us some dough.
Not just because we’re telling you to, but because you appreciate how–just since our last Begathon–LoneStarTimes.com has…
- had to honor far too many of our nation’s fallen finest
- brought you the latest in the fight over property taxes in East Texas, Dallas, and around the state
- remained vigilant towards the less than peaceful expressions of the Religion of Peace
- proven our intellectual independence time and again
- explored the inter-religious dynamics of Bert and Ernie
- honored the sanctity of life
- taken you to Austin with CLOUT
- alerted you to ongoing follies with Homeland Security
- brought back fond memories of dangerous (and fun!) childhood adventures
- fantasized about 15 foot-tall honey-baked ham balloons rolling down FM 1960
- honored one of Houston’s finest, fallen in the line of duty
- celebrated further victories in Friendswood
- fought the Moonbat Conspiracy theorists
- introduced our principle of “Pissing Off the Right People“
- written a boastful, passionate, whispering, masculine kind of blog
- called Nick Lampson on his partisan hypocrisy
- kept an eye on the MSM’s love affair with RINOs
- highlighted Dan Patrick’s city hall speech on immigration
- tracked Houston’s crime wave and crisis within HPD
- led the New Media in coverage of panda sex
- played word games
- cared and grieved for Israel
- announced that Dallas would soon have a Voice
- given you a chance to debate the latest scuttlebutt about Patricia Slade, Jimmy Carter, former Senator and gentleman farmer Jon Lindsay, Ken Lay, Carter Casteel, Fred Hill, Paul Bettencourt, and Dan Patrick
- honored the victims of September 11th
- kept an eye on (and our politicians’ feet to the fire on) the border
- kicked the Perry campaign’s ASS checks
- surpassed 100,000 comments
- offered some Yale political science professors some real-world advice
- gone Hawk-hunting
- examined the legal implications of the Nutcracker Suit
- found fault with feminism
- welcomed Chronicle columnist Rick Casey to the conservative blogosphere
- made certain you retained your CLOUT
- issued an all-points bulletin for the thugs over at Americans for Prosperity
- and as always, kept an eye on Houston’s foolishly, predictably, absurdly, amusingly, Chronically Biased “leading” “information” “source”
… just to name a few of the things we’ve been up to.
It is a labor of love– but we’d love to know you appreciate our hard work.
We thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
David Benzion, Publisher/Managing Editor
Donate now by clicking on the “tip-jar badge” in the upper right-hand corner of the page, or feel free to send a check to the following mailing address–
LoneStarTimes.com
5313 B, FM 1960 W #169
Houston, TX 77069
Filed Under Uncategorized ·
Comments
34 Responses to “LST launches 2006 Fall Begathon”Search
Our Sponsors
Poll
Loading ...LST Book Club
-
Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy
by Natan Sharansky -
Fear No Evil
by Natan Sharansky -
The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
by Anatoly Shcharansky -
The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul
by Yoram Hazony -
Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
by David Brooks -
Snobbery: The American Version
by Joseph Epstein -
A Conflict of Visions: Idealogical Origins of Political Struggles
by Thomas Sowell
This week’s beer money is going to LST.
Oh, and by the way…First!
And I still think that blegging and advertising shouldn’t go together.
But I’m weird like that, so ignore me.
But what have you done for ME lately?
We thank you for your support.
Hmm, since you seem to pocket all the cash, shouldn’t that at least be “*I* thank you?”
It seems a little more honest than begging on behalf of bloggers who don’t receive any of the cash people donate.
Hawaii, then beg give me a break. Startup business don’t usually take nice vacations.
I’m nearly tapped out from my recent political donations, but I’ll pop for a few bucks to this good cause…
#4 Dr. Whited
Gee, I don’t know– let’s ask the bloggers who don’t receive any of the cash.
Volunteer bloggers to LST– do YOU also appreciate and thank our readers for their support?
Or am I the only one who is grateful?
David call me (Rusty) at 888-800-2117…. I could do some LST shirts and put the names of regular bloggers (that contribute $$$ as sponsors, that is) on the back like a roll call….. OR…. an LST bar blogging tour t-shirt with locations during the year they occurred at. I would gladly do such “for the cause”…. Would there be enough interest in doing LST T shirts and stuff to make it worth doing? Sell them at a ridiculous markup, uh…. I mean a nominal fee…
You could do the auction again…..
Justin: “And I still think that blegging and advertising shouldn’t go together.”
I’d think that would be the case if this were a site like Andrew Sullivan’s site, where he was working up a deal with Time for hosting his blog and appearing on nearly every pundit and talking head show regularly while playing the poverty card. He claimed it was for server and bandwidth costs, but simple math showed that he’d have to be running on a diamond-encrusted server on solid gold routers to require such funding.
And I certainly am guilty of doing both at once, although I do not have advertising on the Catcams site for which I have begged for funds.
I want to thank everyone: readers, commenters, regulars, those here from time to time, advertisers, for their support. I couldn’t be here without you.
I consider it an honor and privilege to be able to blog on LST. I do not want nor expect money from the blegathon. Instead, I will most probably contribute the cold hard lucre in order to keep HAL going (since I do after all, have a “real” job that keeps me from blogging as much as I wish). Sometimes those day gigs come in handy.
(And for those inquiring minds, I contributed the last Blegathon… best investment I’ve made lately.)
Re: Kevin Whited
#4
Yes Kevin it is appropriate for David to use the collective “We” to give thanks to our readers. It is his blog and he is, as one might say, our fearless leader and a leader is the voice of those associated with him.
To our LST readers. Words cannot express my gratitude that you take time out of your day to read my missives. Whoduhthunk that a dumb old ex-trucker would have anything to say that you would be interested in.
I have been asked what I am paid to be The Moderator and a participating blogger on LST. I have been rewarded handsomely with friendships and associations with people that in the real world I would have never met. If you can assign a monetary value on that, that is how much I have been paid.
I am truly humbled and grateful for you, our loyal readers.
7
If you need a hand with the labor, I’ll be glad to come help, Rusty.
I can keep the beer iced and pour ink. :>)
No thanks necessary, gang.
We are grateful a bunch of busy people are willing to take time out of their lives to give us this forum.
Unless your comments are in jest, Whited, you simply don’t have a clue what’s been going on here the last few years. Get a life.
Although I haven’t been around here a lot lately, I appreciate the work the unpaid bloggers of LST do. I often agree with them, I sometimes don’t. Either way, they make me think. As Squawk says, I’ve gained valuable friendships from reading LST, him being one of the most noteworthy.
If Squawk and the rest of the contributors are willing to do this work for no money, it’s their business, not mine. I used to wonder WTH they would do it for no money. Having done it myself now for a very short period of time elsewhere, I have a better understanding of the thinking. For me, there is no price that can be placed on the exchange of ideas.
This blogger doesn’t mind at all. I’m not doing it for the money.
I truly appreciate Benzion’s decision to give me an opportunity on LST, and I appreciate all the readers who follow what I write, send me tips, make fun of me, and generally build a great Lone Star Times community.
I will work for a honey baked ham (ha, ha). Seriously, is there a minimum or a maximum contribution?
The maximum contribution is about five paragraphs. Otherwise, Sqauwk gets cranky. :>)
I would like to add one more thing, somewhat selfish self-promotion, but oh well…..
I also have a Reader’s Blog at the Houston Chronicle. This is the self-promotion part; Boldy Go is a “Reader’s Blog” at the Chronicle on Science Fiction. It is also not a paid blog.
The Chronicle, a vast Corporate entity, does not pay their “reader” bloggers. They have advertising, investors, etc., but no money for bloggers.
Please let me be clear on this, that is OK with me. That is part of the “deal” when you start doing it. Just like here at LST: I blog for no money. It’s a purity thing; yeah, that’s it, that’s the ticket… if I took money I would loose my “amateur” status and become professional and nothing is worse than a professional athlete, er, I mean blogger… (isn’t that what they used to say about the Olympics?)
I can’t say as I’ve seen the books so I’m not sure if LST qualifies as a “non-profit” or not. I know that bandwidth/server space takes a decent chunk of LST’s income. And in fact, much of HAL’s downtime is attributable to the need to upgrade said server/bandwidth. We have become popular enough that we are outgrowing our old server and bandwidth infrastructure. Of late our traffic has spiked to all time highs and HAL just can’t take the strain. He’s been sabotaging the AE-35 unit to give himself a little relief.
I am grateful to David to allow me this forum and I’m grateful to all the contributors as well as the commenters here. We are one big dysfunctional family. But somebody has got to pay to keep the roof over our heads and the lights, gas and water on.
I would say the Whitehead (didn’t I pop you recently?) was joking taking a stab at Benzene.
I appreciate all the friendships made here at LST even the one who threw up on me at the brewhaha.
This has been a great experience for me.
I’m a small business owner. How small. Staff of me. I gave what I could because I can’t afford LST’s ad rates.
HAL,
I’ll donate more if you would quit eatting my posts!
We had this conversation last week, you must not eat posts that are clean and well intended.
You are not to eat posts that are high in information and short and to the point, they are bad for you!
You are not to eat posts that are funny! we will tell your mommy and she will spank you!
You can only eat long long long posts that are too long for anyone to actually read! Squawk will love you for it.
So behave yourself and stop eatting my posts!
Alas, HAL is not motivated by money, we haven’t quite figured out WHAT his motivation is but it would not appear to be money….
Holy crap - You mean all this time, I could have been making fun of Matt and I haven’t?
Please join us # 24, make fun of Matt along with the rest of us
O.K,…The way I see it, this blog is entertaining to me, and I’m sure it’s a hobby for David. I doubt that he is getting rich with the damn thing; I’m guessing that he has to dig into his won pockets to keep it afloat. That said, I’ll gladly give a little once in a while to keep it on the air, maybe, after it’s been around a while, it’ll pay for itself. The ad rates have to do with number of hits a day?…I think.
So you have a choice, if you think it’s worth having around, then give a little, but only if you can afford it, if not, please don’t bit*h, because it is still, free paying is optional.
BTW; I’ve been lurking around here since I canceled my subscription to “The Comical”, back when it was called Chronically Biased.
#8 fasternu426, I like it!
David,
I’ll donate like I did in the Spring, but can’t unti payday!
I sent some change your way.
maybe you can lable me “ASS” Another Small Supporter”
I don’t know about all of you, but I’m enjoying the blegging. I love to see a man bleg.
There once was a blog that was great
Where conservatives would congregate
But things hit a hitch –
The bloggers weren’t rich
And were forced to then supplicate.
tedtam
Another great limerick! you are indeed talented!
As Elvis once said:
“Thank you, thank very much.”
Thank you for the blog, the Brew-ha-has, and the tax cut we’re about to get in Friendswood–all because of you, KSEV, and CLOUT!
I’m grateful!