Thoughts on Ron Paul (Ryan, I apologize in advance)

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My close friend and I have an ongoing discussion in regards to Ron Paul that has been going on for weeks now. I lean towards hating Ron Paul while Ryan, a longtime opponent to the mainstream media & our two-party political system, leans toward supporting any third party candidate who stands a chance of bucking the system (Ryan: I hope that accurately describes you).

My original hate of Ron Paul stems from the fact that his fanatical psycho supporters tend to spam a lot of the sites I read with their propaganda-like drivel. This has led me to pull my hair out wishing there was a way to apply a filter to my Digg RSS feed to filter our any and all Ron Paul stories. The closer we get to the primaries, the more they tend to spam Digg. I'm thoroughly convinced, despite his fund raising numbers, that his real supporters are much much lower in numbers than most people thing as they tend to use technological means to drum up support. If you go to ANY Ron Paul thread on Digg, the first time you say anything remotely in opposition to the topic, your name will have -50 Diggs next to it within 2 minutes. If you go to an Apple article and say something anti-apple it may take several hours to build up the same amount of negative Diggs. Something is fishy here.

After the Ron Paul spam spread from Digg, to Reddit, to Fark, to Youtube, to Facebook, to the comments section of DailyKOS, ThinkProgress, Wonkette, DCist...I could go on and on and on....I became sick of it. While I LOVE social networking I recognize the vast majority of the US voting population don't hang out on Digg all day. What do these loons things they're accomplishing? If their story gets 500 Diggs do they think Ron Paul is going to win the Republican primary? Sigh.

Fundraising. Many say that - well yes, Ron Paul is not doing very well in the polls but, He's raised so much money! Yes, Virginia, that's nice. But how did he do that? His supporters aren't supporters. That's not a strong enough word. Try fanatics. Lets face it, Paul "fans" are not your typical supporter. Money you say? What about it? Paul has raised a whole $18 million. Now that is a lot more than I will ever see, but it’s not much in a Presidential race. Clinton is over $80 million, Obama is over $60 million, Giuliani is in the $40 million range, you get the idea. Most of Paul's money is from online. Not from supporters sending in checks from direct mailings or donations to the campaign offices. It’s all from on line. Credit cards.

Paul has tapped something, and that is the willingness of fanatics to go into debt. I’ve read three stories lately about Paul supporters doing crazy things to support him. Quitting jobs, taking out loans to paint their van up, buying a thousand copies of Paul’s books on Amazon, or maxing out their credit cards. They are doing what Paul says he does not want the government to do, take on debt. (what hypocrites it politics? Say it is not so!)

These people have raised $18 million by barrowing on next years income. They can’t keep it up. If you visit www.ronpaulgraphs.com you will see they are not. They got to $10 million in two months, and now they are not giving like they use to. 250 donations a day for the last week now. Down from the almost 2,000 a day in November. They are not getting new people. It’s the same people giving day after day. They are fast reaching their max contributions (they would have if the limit was still the more reasonable $1,000).

Some have argued that donations are down this last week because of the "big event" on the 15th, (sorry, that is Kucinich’s event www.december152007.com) I mean the Sunday tea party. To which I argue, if you only have money to give on one day, you don’t have the money to give through the entire campaign.

The whole "Sunday Tea Party" thing is going to be another example of how small Paul’s support really is. His first event got 38,000 donors (5th Nov). His next event got 700 (30 Nov). If you look at the graph page, you can see one for the 16th. If you look at the line, it’s on track for 38,000. Other than a small bump at the start as they got out. I bet that they will draw another large chunk of credit card debt in with this one too. But it will be about the same amount as before. Paul has about 60,000 supporters. He got 38,000 to give on one day. He may show more than 100,000 in records, but most of those are one time givers. When they find out what he supports they don’t donate again.

Take Barry Manilow, he gave to Paul and to every other anti-war candidate out there. He has not done anything else for him. Many of Paul’s donors are the same, they are against the war, they are supporting the message that the war needs to end. They want to see it talked about and give to those who do. But being against the war is not enough to keep getting money when your against basic human rights like health care. Or they are like the Storm Front guys, one donation to get in the press, but not another dime after that.

Paul is going to get money, and lots more than he should with his policies. He is not getting it from a wide base of supporters though. Instead its from a very small number of fanatics. He is not a threat because his campaign has no staff of note, no plan, the fans are out their with no direction going all over with no plan, heck they are buying a blimp! Instead of supporting the campaign with those funds. Every fan has ideas that draw away money from the campaign every day and with out a staff to direct them they throw money at it.

Every dime they don’t give to the campaign is less that can be used to build spin on the Paul campaign. Paul’s "fans" are going to cause their own implosion, they have about one more "big day", before they start pulling in 60,000 different directions with 60,000 plans.

I don't worry about Paul and his "fans". They are not going to hurt any progressive candidate. What irks me is that they wont get out of my face. The main reason I dislike evangelical Christians is they wont leave me alone. They try to impose their beliefs onto me & everyone around them. Ron Paul's supporters seem very much like this. Keep track of them if you, like me, love a great laugh. Come on, a blimp! And they are having problems collecting some of the donations that were pledged. If their Tea Party next Sunday gets more than $5 million I'll be slightly surprised. What I really look forward to though? The day the Republican primaries are over so the Republicans can finally pick either Guliani, Romney, or Huckabee(who will lose to either Hilary, Obama, or Edwards) - maybe then the RP fanatics will go away & I can have some peace again when I read my feeds in Google Reader.

Al Gore meets Klingon ambassador

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Al Gore w Klingon Well, Fake Steve Jobs has hit another one out of the park:

Well it was a momentous occasion as Al was lauded by the United Federation of Planets for his work to save planet Earth. He's shown here with the Klingon ambassador, Lord Koloth. (The V-shaped green emblem is the mark of his rank.) They're both holding menus from the dinner. Later Al was beamed aboard the Klingon mothership for a tour. He says it was absolutely fantastic, and he swears there were no rectal probes. "Well," I said, "none that you remember. They give you drugs that erase your memory. Ask Woz. They did it to him back in the Eighties, only they overdid the memory drugs and now he can't remember anything. He goes around telling people he invented the friggin personal computer. Anyway it was the same ploy. They gave him some big award for tech innnovation, and took him up to the mothership. Honestly, I can't believe you fell for it. It's like the oldest alien trick there is."
So Al gets all freaked out and wants to see a doctor. I told him not to bother since our primitive technology won't be able to detect anything. "They probably put a chip in you too, but you'll never find that either," I said. That put him in a panic. Dumbass. (Much love to Robert for the photo.)

via FakeSteveJobs

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-10

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  • Going to bed after a long day. I think my semi-annual flare up of the ebola is coming on. #

  • Got to work despite the red line delays and Chinatown being very crowded. It sounds like Alessandra got stuck on the yellow though. #

  • Just finished breakfast, checked the info & stf boxes, and am now deciding which of the 10 projects I have for this week I should do first. #

  • @jackhodgson Welcome to the Twitter Holiday Hat Club™ #

  • @pixelant That actually sounds good. I may do that myself. #

  • @theresamac Hello new follower. Took you long enough. #

  • @leolaporte I had an issue w/ a red pepper Saturday night. I remember your pain. #

10 Reasons Not to Vote for Ron Paul

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This article is reposted from wwjvf.com

As anyone with a blog, YouTube account, MySpace page, or web site knows Ron Paul supporters are everywhere! The internet is filled with them. Although I run a progressive blog and I support Democratic candidates, I am constantly barraged with pleas and “stories” to win me over. The frightening thing that I have witnessed is that many liberal voters are giving some credence to Ron Paul’s campaign and message. He somehow comes across as different or better than the run of the mill conservatives filling the Republican ticket.

I do not support Ron Paul in ANY and I find his Congressional record and policies to be, at times, even scarier than his counterparts. The only thing that I have found to agree with him on is the fact that he does not support the war in Iraq. After extensive research I have compiled a list of 10 reasons NOT to vote for Ron Paul!

  1. Ron Paul does not value equal rights for minorities. Ron Paul has sponsored legislation that would repeal affirmative action, keep the IRS from investigating private schools who may have used race as a factor in denying entrance, thus losing their tax exempt status, would limit the scope of Brown versus Board of Education, and would deny citizenship for those born in the US if their parents are not citizens. Here are links to these bills: H.R.3863, H.R.5909, H.J.RES.46, and H.J.RES.42.

  2. Ron Paul would deny women control of their bodies and reproductive rights.Ron Paul makes it very clear that one of his aims is to repeal Roe v. Wade. He has also co sponsored 4 separate bills to “To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.” This, of course, goes against current medical and scientific information as well as our existing laws and precedents. Please see these links: H.R.2597 and H.R.392

  3. Ron Paul would be disastrous for the working class. He supports abolishing the Federal minimum wage, has twice introduced legislation to repeal OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Act and would deal devastating blows to Social Security including repealing the act that makes it mandatory for employees of nonprofits, to make “coverage completely optional for both present and future workers”, and would “freeze benefit levels”. He has also twice sponsored legislation seeking to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act and the Copeland Act which among other things provide that contractors for the federal government must provide the prevailing wage and prohibits corporate “kick backs.” Here are the related legislative links: H.R.2030, H.R.4604, H.R.736, and H.R.2720

  4. Ron Paul’s tax plan is unfair to lower earners and would greatly benefit those with the highest incomes.He has repeatedly submitted amendments to the tax code that would get rid of the estate and gift taxes, tax all earners at 10%, disallow income tax credits to individuals who are not corporations, repeal the elderly tax credit, child care credit, earned income credit, and other common credits for working class citizens. Please see this link for more information: H.R.05484 Summary

  5. Ron Paul’s policies would cause irreparable damage to our already strained environment. Among other travesties he supports off shore drilling, building more oil refineries, mining on federal lands, no taxes on the production of fuel, and would stop conservation efforts that could be a “Federal obstacle” to building and maintaining refineries. He has also sought to amend the Clean Air Act, repeal the Soil and Water Conservation Act of 1977, and to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to “restrict the jurisdiction of the United States over the discharge of dredged or fill material to discharges into waters”. To see for yourself the possible extent of the damage to the environment that would happen under a Paul administration please follow these links: H.R.2504, H.R.7079, H.R.7245, H.R.2415, H.R.393, H.R.4639, H.R.5293, and H.R.6936

  6. A Ron Paul administration would continue to proliferate the negative image of the US among other nations. Ron Paul supports withdrawing the US from the UN, when that has not happened he has fought to at least have the US withdrawn from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. He has introduced legislation to keep the US from giving any funds to the UN. He also submitted that the US funds should not be used in any UN peacekeeping mission or any UN program at all. He has sponsored a bill calling for us to “terminate all participation by the United States in the United Nations, and to remove all privileges, exemptions, and immunities of the United Nations.”

    Ron Paul twice supported stopping the destruction of intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the United States. He also would continue with Bush’s plan of ignoring international laws by maintaining an insistence that the International Criminal Court does not apply to the US, despite President Clinton’s signature on the original treaty. The International Criminal Court is used for, among other things, prosecution of war crimes. Please see the following links: H.R.3891, H.AMDT.191, H.AMDT.190, H.R.3769, H.R.1665, H.CON.RES.23, and H.R.1154

  7. Ron Paul discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and would not provide equal rights and protections to glbt citizens. This is an issue that Paul sort of dances around. He has been praised for stating that the federal government should not regulate who a person marries. This has been construed by some to mean that he is somewhat open to the idea of same sex marriage, he is not. Paul was an original co sponsor of the Marriage Protection Act in the House in 2004. Among other things this discriminatory piece of legislation placed a prohibition on the recognition of a same sex marriage across state borders. He said in 2004 that if he was in theTexas legislature he would not allow judges to come up with “new definitions” of marriage. Paul is a very religious conservative and though he is careful with his words his record shows that he is not a supporter of same sex marriage. In 1980 he introduced a particularly bigoted bill entitled “A bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955 A direct quote from the legislation “Prohibits the expenditure of Federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style.” shows that he is unequivocally opposed to lifestyles other than heterosexual.

  8. Ron Paul has an unnatural obsession with guns. One of Paul’s loudest gripes is that the second amendment of the constitution is being eroded. In fact, he believes that September 11 would not have happened if that wasn’t true. He advocates for there to be no restrictions on personal ownership of semi-automatic weaponry or large capacity ammunition feeding devices, would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act (because we all know our schools are just missing more guns), wants guns to be allowed in our National Parks, and repeal the Gun Control Act of 1968. Now, I’m pretty damn certain that when the Constitution was written our founding fathers never intended for people to be walking around the streets with AK47’s and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” (That just sounds scary.) Throughout the years our Constitution has been amended and is indeed a living document needing changes to stay relevant in our society. Paul has no problem changing the Constitution when it fits his needs, such as no longer allowing those born in the US to be citizens if their parents are not. On the gun issue though he is no holds barred. I know he’s from Texas but really, common sense tells us that the amendments he is seeking to repeal have their place. In fact, the gun control act was put into place after the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. Please view the following links: H.R.2424, H.R.1897, H.R.1096, H.R.407, H.R.1147, and H.R.3892.

  9. Ron Paul would butcher our already sad educational system. The fact is that Ron Paul wants to privatize everything and that includes education. Where we run into problems is that it has been shown (think our current health care system) that this doesn’t work so well in practice. Ron Paul has introduced legislation that would keep the Federal Government “from planning, developing, implementing, or administering any national teacher test or method of certification and from withholding funds from States or local educational agencies that fail to adopt a specific method of teacher certification.” In a separate piece of legislation he seeks to “prohibit the payment of Federal Education assistance in States which require the licensing or certification of private schools or private school teachers.” So basically the federal government can’t regulate teaching credentials and if states opt to require them for private schools they get no aid. That sounds like a marvelous idea teachers with no certification teaching in private schools that are allowed to discriminate on the basis of race. He is certainly moving forward with these proposals!

    Remember his “bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955? Guess what? He basically advocates for segregation in schools once again. It “Forbids any court of the United States from requiring the attendance at a particular school of any student because of race, color, creed, or sex.” Without thinking about this statement it doesn’t sound bad at all. But remember, when desegregating schools that this is done by having children go to different schools, often after a court decision as in Brown Vs. Board of Education. If this were a bill that passed, schools would no longer be compelled to comply and the schools would go back to segregation based on their locations. Ron Paul is really starting to look like a pretty bigoted guy don’t you think?

  10. Ron Paul is opposed to the separation of church and state. This reason is probably behind every other thing that I disagree with in regards to Paul’s positions. Ron Paul is among those who believes that there is a war on religion, he stated “Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view.”1 Though he talks a good talk, at times, Ron Paul can’t get away from his far right, conservative views. He would support “alternative views” to evolution taught in public schools (i.e. Intelligent Design.) We’ve already taken a look at his “bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955 Besides hating the gays he takes a very religious stance on many other things. He is attempting to force his beliefs on the rest of America, exactly what he would do as president.

So there you have it, my 10 reasons not to vote for Ron Paul. Please take the time to thoroughly review the records of the people running for office so you know where they really stand. Ron Paul has good rhetoric and he opposes the war but he’s not a good man in the human rights sense of the phrase. He is pretty much like every other Republican but more insidious. Here is a video that you should watch after reading this article. Really listen to what he says and how he says it. Watch out for the sneaky ones and RESEARCH!2

Dear Doris Lessing: Reading And Writing Online Are Still Reading And Writing

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Doris Lessing is getting a fair bit of attention for her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, where she spends a lot of time talking about the hunger for books in Zimbabwe, but then, oddly, blasts computers and the internet as if they're destroying the ability to read and write:

We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers.
What has happened to us is an amazing invention - computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked: "What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" In the same way, we never thought to ask, "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?"

These statements unfortunately come off as the stereotypical "back in my day!" rantings of someone no longer in touch with society. It's odd in the first paragraph for her to call out "computers" as being part of the "know nothing" generation. Computers have helped countless people learn more, discuss more and engage more. She describes computers like someone who has never used one. The second paragraph then (again, oddly) combines computers with television -- despite the extremely different nature of the two. One is passive, one is active. One is about communication and engagement, the other is about broadcasting and receiving. Furthermore, as she goes on to lament a lack of interest in books as a necessary core for a new generation of writers, she mocks "blogging" which is actually helping more people write more than they would otherwise. It's an elitist stance to suggest that just because it's short-form and online it doesn't matter. It's also wrong. Studies have shown that students these days are much more comfortable writing -- in large part because they spend so much more time communicating via the written word online. It's truly unfortunate that Lessing would use her Nobel speech to incorrectly bash something on which she apparently has little understanding. The rest of her speech is quite interesting, and it's too bad that it's marred by this unfortunate and misplaced attack on modern technology.

via Techdirt