Curiouser

A loyal reader writes in to point out: if you go (sometime in the very near future, before the spot changes) to the popular website of the Mideast historian Juan Cole, and look at the right side of the page, you will find this lovely ad. It shows Vojislav Koštunica in front of a wall with an icon and a flag, fingering a ballot box with a come-hither expression on his face. The ad is right above another one promoting the candidacy of Barack Obama, and it features the following text:

The New Serbia

A young democracy, rich in tradition, with religious and press freedom.

A democratic Serbia is the key to stability in the Balkans, an inspiration to all in the region.

The New Serbia

An investment in democracy that's working

Read more

There are links in the text, but they all lead to the same not so exciting site: the place where the government puts out its English-language press releases (among the news items: 3,334 votes means that "31.5% of diaspora casts ballot"--that is rather a smaller diaspora than other folks, some of whom might know what the government is saying, claim). If Professor Cole's source code is to be believed (and why should it not?) this ad was purchased through Blogads for the modest price of $100, and the buyer was promised that it would be seen by 193,732 people, of the type targeted by the "Liberal Blog Advertising Network." It's interesting company for a government which is led, for another few weeks anyway, by a party which releases statements claiming that visits by European diplomats before an election "are impermissible and damage the normal life of the country."

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