Amanda Marcotte's new piece on female nerds in television is perceptive — but it also shows how diluted the word "nerd" has become.

17-year-old Emma Breyer has filed a petition to run for office as the precinct republican rep in Clermont County. Although she will be 18 by the November elections, the Ohio Secretary of State says she's too young to run. [UPI]

[Los Angeles, June 8 . Image via Flynet]

Here's a ray of sunshine to anyone who ever wondered if their massive personal reserves of good karma were never going to amount to anything: the Dalai Lama just scored a meeting with the government that excommunicated him in 1959! Oh sure, and the cops who killed that nice unarmed electrician the day before his…