Senate Panel backs Law of the Sea Treaty

From AP:

The Reagan-era "Law of the Sea" treaty was primed for its first-ever Senate vote, boosted by strong support from the Bush administration and an emphatic vote of approval Wednesday by the Foreign Relations Committee.

With Senate ratification, the United States would join 155 nations that are party to a convention that sets rules and settles disputes over navigation, fishing and economic development of the open seas and establishes environmental standards.

Really, why do we even have a State Department? It's their job to talk to other countries. Do we really need to submit our sovereignty to the UN? What a joke. If I were running for President, I would be hammering all of the Senators who want to abdicate their duty to protecting and defending the Constitution by supporting this ridiculous treaty. This should be brought up at every debate for every presidential candidate to answer.

Postapathy: A little about drugs, "Real Women of Canada"#links

Postapathy christens his blog with a first post on marijuana.

I'm not a fan of illicit drugs, but I'm an enemy of all policies and bureaucrats that would take away the civil liberties and freedoms and traditions our country was founded on. I can't stand the fact that the "War on Drugs" has been a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars of valuable taxpayer money and the only results we have to show for it are hundreds of thousands of citizens jailed or branded as criminals, a militarized approach to law enforcement (and the attendant growth of government that has gone along with it) and the trampling of civil rights that is the inevitable consequence of government trying to legislate morality.

Coincidently, Reason magazine has a story today on how literally our government war on drugs killed one of its citizens:

Last March, when the Drug Enforcement Administration seized less than half an ounce of cannabis that Robin Prosser, a Missoula lupus patient and medical marijuana activist, had been sent by her caregiver, the special agent in charge of the DEA's Rocky Mountain Field Division said it was "protecting people from their own state laws." Last week, unable to find a reliable supply of the only drug that relieved her pain without causing unacceptable side effects, Prosser killed
herself. Although the use of medical marijuana is legal in Montana, friends say suppliers were spooked by the DEA. Writing in the Helena Independent Record,
activist Tom Daubert calls Prosser's death "a direct result of DEA actions."

About a month ago I debated drug policy on the Dallas PBS station with a former head of the local DEA office, who insisted that marijuana was not a big priority for the agency. When I pointed out that his former employer was continuing to raid medical marijuana growers and dispensaries in California and other states, he said it couldn't very well sit back and allow that sort of thing. To which my response was: Why not? It is hard to understand, even from the DEA's point of view, how half an ounce of pot can be such a threat that it's worth risking an outcome like this one.

Of course, there may be negative consequences to ending the "War on Drugs" but is it going to be anything like this:

Ron Paul on Jay Leno

Most Influential Conservatives

The Telegraph has a listing of the top 100 conservatives and has been doling the names out 20 at a time. Today, Nos - 61-80 :

Couple of notables today:

Thomas Sowell - My favorite economist, (yes even above Milton Friedman). Basic Economics and Applied Economics made it through the recent culling of my book collection. I've been reading his books and columns for nearly 20 years.

Pat Buchanan - When I was in college, people would always smear Pat as a racist, blah blah blah. Which made me curious about his ideas, so I started reading his writings and have become a fan over the years.

BONUS: The Weekly Buchanan, video style (admittedly a couple of years old but classic)

Cracked: The 25 Secret Perks of Working at Google

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Wolves and Sheep

Judge Andrew Napolitano, legal analyst and a regular on Fox News has a new book out called "A Nation of Sheep". Andrew Young has an overview at LewRockwell.com:

Judge Napolitano dedicates a significant portion of his book to detailing the Bush Administration’s assault on the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unlawful searches and seizures of their homes, person, and property. He perceptively notes that one of the main justifications for the American Revolution was the British policy of allowing soldiers to conduct searches by simply writing their own warrants. The Framers specifically outlawed this practice when they adopted the Fourth Amendment, which bans searches and seizures unless a judge has signed a search warrant.

Ed Morrissey: Terrorism is a tactic

Over in the Captains Quarters, Ed Morrissey makes the point that many neo-conservatives and the Bush administration have been ignoring since 9/11:

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter -- and the State Department finally has discovered this truth. In a long-overdue act, State has forgiven the "terrorism" of the Hmong and Montagnards who fought so bravely beside us in Southeast Asia, allowing them to enter the country and allowing those already here to become legal residents.

I've stopped by CQ off and on over the past few years, and I don't know if I recall him ever making a statement so, well, um, Michael Moore-ish. His post does address something further down that I don't think gets talked about enough:

...We have used "war on terror" as a label because it allows us to avoid the more accurate -- and more provocative -- descriptor of a war against radical Islamist terrorists. Using that phrase clearly identifies our enemies, but we have avoided it to keep those enemies from twisting it into a war on Islam for their own propaganda purposes.

Unfortunately, this declaration of war against a tactic leads to a lot of conclusions, many of them self-defeating. It calls into question what terrorism means, how it's defined, and under what circumstances it becomes terrorism.

What Morrissey didn't add in his critique is how we define victory in a war against a tactic. The truth is, there is no way to win the GWOT. Just like murder, kidnapping, extortion or any other tactic, it's always going to be around. There is a way to counter radical Islamic terrorists, but that's material for another post.

So why not just be more clear on who our enemy is? The explanation given by Morrissey is inadequate because it doesn't address our own internal propaganda purposes. Look at the rights that we have given up in the name of fighting the GWOT. The Patriot Act has allowed warrantless searches, and the elimination of habeaus corpus to become a norm. Has there even been a discussion about even amending the Constitution to reflect that norm? Not at all. But that's OK, it's all in the name of fighting terror.

All of the amendments that make up the Bill of Rights are equal, and should be respected equally. Assaults on the 4th and the 5th amendment should be met with the same resistance as attacks on the 1st and 2nd or the other 6. Terrorists hate us because of our freedoms Bush says, well our government is working on that.

Ron Paul, Alex Jones, and Neo-Nazis

Hotair printed a mea culpa today regarding a "payment" that the Ron Paul campaign had made to radio host/truther Alex Jones. The $1300 payment to the talk radio host turns out to be a partial refund of a campaign donation for Dr. Paul's presidential run.

Allahpundit writes:

You’ll find the disbursement here about three-quarters of the way down. I could have done without the insinuations of laziness (”bloggers can’t be bothered to do five minutes of research”), especially when bloggers are credited in the same post for having discovered the donation from Don Black — can the campaign “not be bothered” to police for that sort of thing, given their unsolicited yet rising support among white supremacists? — but kudos to Paul for returning, well, not quite all of Alex Jones’s filthy $2,300 but a good-sized chunk of it.

Come on Allahpundit, you belong to "Pajamas Media", there's no intimation of laziness from THAT? But that's beside the point.

Why the name calling and ridicule among the neocons at all? Granted, Dr. Paul isn't Ronald Reagan, he isn't the great communicator. But the histrionics that would make Patti Labelle or Mariah Carey blush have been a hallmark of the neo-conservatives who really get hysterical about the thought of a conservative who literally doesn't tow the party line. Dr. Paul raised 5 million dollars on a message that hasn't changed in 30 years, could it be that the party has left it's base?

Ron Paul's message is resonating with people who are sick and tired of having to choose between 5 degrees of Nelson Rockefeller GOP moderate when what people are looking for is a return to Reagan/Goldwater/Taft conservatism. It isn't just antiwar lefties who are flocking to his campaign. It's libertarians and small government conservatives who have left the party because W's administration has become the second coming of LBJ's "Great Society". It's getting so bad in the GOP that anti abortionists can't even get a seat at the GOP's table...

Gold price closes in on 800 dollars

According to Breitbart

24 Season 7 trailer

I haven't seen this before:

Five Degrees of Moderate

Not quite siren worthy according to Drudge but a big deal to the "Values Voters" whom Huckabee has been gaining endorsements and momentum. Pilfered from the WSJ:

Phyllis Schlafly, president of the national Eagle Forum, is even more blunt. "He (Huckabee) destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles," she says. "Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee."

The Weekly Buchanan: Conservatism is a Tower of Babel

From his column this week entitled Conservatism is a Tower of Babel:

Sixty years ago, Robert A. Taft was the gold standard. Forty years ago, it was Barry Goldwater, who backed Bob Taft against Ike at the 1952 convention. Twenty years ago, it was Ronald Reagan, who backed Barry in 1964. Reagan remains the paragon – for the consistency of his convictions, the success of his presidency and the character he exhibited to the end of his life. About Reagan the cliché was true: The greatness of the office found out the greatness in the man.

Just as Taft begat Goldwater begat Reagan and now Ron Paul. Giuliani traces his political lineage to McGovern and Rockefeller, and more recently the Bushes. Which, in my opinion, is what the nomination will come down to: Giuliani vs. Paul. Unless any of the other candidates start to gain traction (Huckabee seems to be the latest media anointed flavor of the month but I don't think his fundraising will keep him in the race for much longer).

The five million dollars that Paul raised last quarter will likely be doubled in the fourth quarter. The army of volunteers that have sprouted up spontaneously and the advertising they are doing independent of the campaign is worth millions. Giuliani has brought big money to the table since he announced his candidacy, there is no reason to believe that the money will stop flowing (compassionate conservatism takes a lot of money to work after all). At this point, I wouldn't even say Dr. Paul is an underdog, he is a player in the GOP race who is saying something completely different from Rudy and the other candidates and offers a true alternative in the direction that the party is going to go.

Is 2008 a redux of 1976 or 1980?

BONUS from The Hill:

Kate Rick, Dr. Paul's media coordinator in New Hampshire says this:

“[GOP pollster] Frank Luntz has said on TV that the GOP base has shrunk from 34 percent to 30 percent of the voting population, driven by the war issue,” said Rick. “When your base shrinks it’s extremely damaging to the party. Ron is the onlycandidate who can bring those people back.”

Of course this is the same Frank Luntz that was on Penn and Teller's show "Bullshit!"

Yoga with Tara Stiles, Ford Model

Check out Tara's myspace: www.myspace.com/tarastiles

This week, a routine for beginners



Yoga for Beginners with Tara Stiles

I'm adding Kristeen's vid, just because she's hot. She doesn't do yoga, and all she's talking about is her pictures. But I like her look, sort of Jessica Alba-ish.

A look inside Kristeen's model portfolio

The Ron Paul Remix feat R Kelly -

This is pretty funny, it's short also:

Thank You! And Don't Watch this Movie

The fires here in San Diego have really captured my attention the past few days, luckily I haven't had to evacuate, yet. But I have a number of friends who live where the fires have hit hard that have had to leave. I'm hoping and praying for the best for them.

I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who has called and emailed me expressing their concern about the situation out here, I know that things could be a lot worse, not just for me, but for everyone around here.

All of that being said, I wanted to direct everyone's attention to another tragedy in the making:
"Repo: The Genetic Opera" has a trailer out. Paris Hilton is in it, so is the dude from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Sara Brightman (the woman who sings the Bellagio song with the blind dude)

I really don't know what to make of it:



it could be the second coming of "Grease" OR it could be as bad as this:




I will say that if they were trying to make a trailer that makes someone NOT want to see the movie, this is probably the way to go about it.

San Diego Fires

10/23/07 7:57 AM UPDATE:

I had scheduled this appointment last week and am getting my car serviced this morning, they are running a skeleton crew and advised me that they will close early if advised to evacuate. I can overhear a number of employees talking about how the fire has affected them.

I had to get on the freeway for a couple of miles to get to the dealership and there was no traffic at all.





UPDATE: And Still I Persist has tons of updates from Escondido



I hadn't really been paying attention to the fires that have been ravaging the Malibu area of Southern California. Then I take a step outside of my place here in San Diego and there is ash falling everywhere. I turn on the radio just now and Governor Schwarzenegger is holding a press conference about the fires raging east of San Diego and to the south close to the Mexican border. It looks like areas of Solana Beach (a beach community north of San Diego) is having some evacuations now.

So far there have been 250,000 evacuations. Qualcomm Stadium (where the Chargers play) which is 2 miles east of my location has been converted into a shelter area.

Local news reports indicate that the government emergency services infrastructure has held up well, with few problems coordinating and communicating with each other.

KUSI has their newsfeed streaming here:

http://www.kusi.com/home/10720631.html?video=pop&t=a

KNSD the local NBC affiliate has news as well:

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/index.html

their live feed is here:

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/videostream/11724377/detail.html

Will update soon.

Zakaria says that we have lost all perspective on Iran

From Newsweek:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

In fact, Zakaria writes, the evidence is to the contrary:

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

Why does President Bush feel that Iran is such a threat to our national security, going as far last week as to say that World War Three would be inevitable if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons? Here is something that Zakaria fails to mention about Iran. The war rhetoric from Bush on Iran has been nonstop since his "Axis of Evil' speech in 2002. Our transformation of Ahmadinejad into Hitler started when he was elected to office in 2005. One gets the feeling that Mother Theresa could be elected into the Iranian presidency, and, come hell or high water, they would be the new monster that the administration would have to slay in the name of stopping terrorism.

Ron Paul post debate interview w/Hannity 9/21/07

Yoga with Tara Stiles Ford Model

This week: Hamstrings

Check out Tara's myspace: http://www.myspace.com/tarastiles

Homage to Salma Hayek's boobs

I've always had a thing for latinas and now Uber (NSFW for nudity, but totally worth it) has a top 10 tribute to uber-hottie Salma Hayek and her boobs. I can't believe that Salma is pushing 40.

Here's Conan hypnotized, from uber's list:

LieStoppers: Professor Anderson tells it like it is

LieStoppers: Professor Anderson tells it like it is

I started reading Professor Anderson's columns for his take on the Duke Lacrosse case over a year ago. Here it is 6 months after North Carolina AG Roy Moore declared the accused innocent and a criminal investigation of Nifong and the local law enforcement hasn't even begun. Are we ever going to see criminal charges for DA Nifong or the police department involved with the Duke Lacrosse case? William Anderson says "When hell freezes over":

The reason is simple: the politics of race. Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans are white, and their accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum, is black. The NAACP and other black organizations had staked all of their credibility to the charges being true, and desperately tried to keep the case alive, even when it was exposed as a lie. Furthermore, the rape crisis organizations and feminist groups also refused to let go of the lies that propelled this case in the first place. The radical faculty members, employees, administrators and students at Duke also rebelled at seeing this "opportunity" slip through their fingers, so they insisted that Cooper either had covered up the evidence or had been kowtowing to white supremacists. In other words, even the truth could not stop business as usual, so people from these groups simply comforted themselves with the Big Lie that the players were guilty of rape, but were going to skirt justice because of their race and family incomes.

Racial politics at the expense of justice, I shouldn't even act like I'm shocked.

Bill Maher and 9/11 truthers

Who is screening his audience? The TSA?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrUD-5hf1A

The real highlight of the show was the interview with World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov. He is an interesting interview because his insight on Russia and Russian politics is fascinating. His opinions on us are even more illuminating:

Tucker, Buchanan, and Press on Ron Paul

Ron Paul's donor list is eclectic:

The Coming Market Correction (part 2)

Back in August I had said that there was going to be a huge market correction, that the meltdown was coming.

This week, we've seen continued decline of the dollar compared to the Euro. We've seen oil futures trade at record highs, and as of close today, the dow jones ended up down 2.64%. With other indices down by similar percentages.

Next week will be key, will the freefall continue? It's going to be bad, very, very, bad.

Blowback - Cold War Style

Pat Buchanan not mincing words this week:

At the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, largest nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, historic or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology was interred.

We blew it.

We moved NATO onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid interests and concerns, and, with our "indispensable-nation" arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France treated Weimar Germany after Versailles.

Who restarted the Cold War? Bush and the braying hegemonists he brought with him to power.

Great empires and tiny minds go ill together.

Note to Lew Rockwell, you need to update Pat's stock photo.

The TSA sucks at its job

From USA Today:

Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

It turns out that at LAX, the screeners there missed fake bombs 75% of the time. Don't you get the sinking feeling that the fake bombs that they used for the experiments were a bunch of candles tied together with a ticking alarm clock attached on top?

What is also interesting is that the private screeners (non TSA employees) at San Francisco airport were able to CATCH the fake bombs 80% of the time.

As if there wasn't enough evidence that the private sector works much better than the public sector in doing most things, add this to the list.

Alan Greenspan on Fox Business

He's promoting his book, but at the end, I think it's interesting that, for the second time I've seen, the interviewers asks him about the need for a central bank. He even uses the term "fiat money".

8 PS3's and then you can destroy the world!

I spotted this article on Hotair:

Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStation 3s

...Prior to obtaining his PS3s, Khanna relied on grants from the National
Science Foundation (NSF) to use various supercomputing sites spread across the
United States "Typically I'd use a couple hundred processors -- going up to 500
-- to do these same types of things."

However, each of those supercomputer runs cost Khanna as much as $5,000 in grant money. Eight 60 GB PS3s would cost just $3,200, by contrast, but Khanna figured he would have a hard time convincing the NSF to give him a grant to buy game consoles, even if the overall price tag was lower. So after tweaking his code this past summer so that it could take advantage of the Cell's unique architecture, Khanna set about petitioning Sony for some help in the form of free PS3s.

That last paragraph is just another example of what happens when the government gets involved in doling out cash. The costs of doing something goes up, when you compare trying to do the exact same thing where government is NOT involved, it ends up people find cheaper, more creative ways to meet that goal.

Talking Radio: Randi Rhodes is the Victim of a Violent Attack

Talking Radio: Randi Rhodes is the Victim of a Violent Attack Never Mind

UPDATE- She fell down

The way this story sounds, it's remarkably familiar, oh yeah:


Domestic Abuse No Longer A Problem, Say Bruised Female Researchers



I don't listen to Air America, but I have seen Randi Rhodes on CNN:



Hopefully she's alright.

Being that this is someone's blog they do put their spin on the story:

"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us."

Yeah, that's right, like most of the ideas on the left don't suck anyways.

Conservative Belle: Wiretapping Concessions Are Necessary

UPDATE and BUMP:

According to Verizon Communications, they turned over to the government information without court orders 720 times since 2005:

From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times, it said in the letter. The records included Internet protocol addresses as well as phone data. In that period, Verizon turned over information a total of 94,000 times to federal authorities armed with a subpoena or court order, the letter said. The information was used for a range of criminal investigations, including kidnapping and child-predator cases and counter-terrorism investigations.

Now the telecoms are lobbying Congress for legal immunity when they turn over records or eavesdrop on conversations without a court order and they don't want to be held liable for doing this in the past as well.

The 4th amendment is very clear:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The negative consequences of granting immunity to the telecoms are huge. You can count abuse by the government with no recourse for the individual among them. How many more fishing expeditions are going to come about because there is no incentive for the phone companies to maintain the privacy of their customers?

Some will argue "But if you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to hide" but I don't think that argument has as much validity now considering we spent the better part of a year watching a government official put the Duke Lacrosse team on trial so he could get re-elected. While justice is supposed to be blind, it is applied by people with their own biases and interests. The 4th amendment is supposed to be a backstop against that.



I made some comments over there since I'm too lazy to blog about it over here. But it's an interesting topic to me.

European Cities do away with Traffic Signs

This article was published a year ago.

Imagine what it would be like if there were no stoplights, traffic signs, speed limits or sidewalks. They are experimenting with this in Europe and the results so far have been LESS fatalities and accidents.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,druck-448747,00.html

Fred Thompson interviewed on Fox News

What is it that Larry David said from "Curb Your Enthusiasm"? "I'm completely nonplussed"



Pilfered from Hotair.com

With Fred in the race, it looks like we have all of the Spice Girls:

Mitt Romney is Posh - good looking, polished but sometimes out of his depth
Mike Huckabee is Sporty - he is into healthy lifestyles
Rudy Giuliani is Scary - in your face attitude, and I'm sure he's had paternity issues to deal with
Fred Thompson is Baby - welcome to the party
John McCain is Ginger - a cool demeanor with a hint of crazy, which makes him cool to hang out with but he missed his opportunity and he's getting long in tooth.

What about Ron Paul? He's Elvis.

Cover Song of the Week

I thought it was time to dust off this Roguenation feature and throw out some songs that I'm waxing nostalgic for:

Social Distortion - Ring of Fire



I can't believe Social Distortion released the album this cover came from almost twenty years ago...

Of course, Social D was totally cool when I was younger (they still are) but not as cool as this (consider it a bonus track from the RM archives)

Ron Paul ignored at CNBC Debate?

According to this article, Ron Paul got less airtime than even all of the "second tier" candidates. I guess we now know what raising $5 million in a quarter doesn't buy you in a Presidential race.

Ron Paul interviewed on PBS

Part 1


Part 2

Warrantless Searches

Over at Conservative Belle's blog, there is a post that talks about how telecom companies should have immunity for helping the NSA eavesdrop on conversations without warrants.

I understand that we should be concerned about terrorism here in this country. But if the argument I have heard from Republicans of the Bush/Romney/Giuliani school for why we were attacked on 9/11 was because of our freedoms. Aren't we appeasing our enemies by making our country less free?

Aren't we doing exactly what the terrorists want us to do? Terrorists can't invade or occupy us. They can't bomb us back into the stone age. But they have scared us into changing the very things that make our country great.

That Poll Spammer is Ruining it for Everyone

Earlier this week, there was a GOP debate on CNBC, like every other one that's been held, there was a post-debate online poll. Who won? The same person who always wins, Ron Paul. Going away. The numbers were skewed so much in Dr. Paul's favor that CNBC pulled the poll. In its place they put this.

In response, Bob Murphy (author of the book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism" a highly recommended read) wrote back:

By all means, let’s explore this "show of hands" analogy. What Wastler is complaining about is that, in a giant conference room of 300 million people, a higher percentage of Ron Paul supporters raised their hands than did the supporters of the other candidates. So that when Wastler counted up the hands in the air, he got "phony" results. Well whose fault is that? Sure, if a Ron Paul fan raised both hands (the equivalent of hacking the CNBC poll and registering more than one vote per person), that would be cheating. But Ron Paul supporters aren’t to blame if the other candidates are so blah that their own proponents don’t bother voting for them.

Which is true, even the highly touted Fred Thompson, who made his debate debut, was less than impressive.

Yoga with Tara Stiles, Ford Model

BUMP

This week: twists

Check out Tara's myspace here.



People ask me all the time: Randolphus, are you really into yoga or what? And isn't it mostly for chicks?

I used to be really hardcore into lifting weights and going to the gym, in fact, I started seeing a massage therapist because I was having shoulder and neck and back problems. A lot of it coming from sitting in front of a computer for 10 hours a day, and also from weight training. Anyway, my massage therapist recommended that I go do yoga as a way to enhance my flexibility. So I went to my first class. I thought I was in pretty good shape, but by the end of that first session, I found out that there was a LOT of muscle groups that I wasn't really using. Some of the poses I had real problems with at first and my competitive instincts made me want to push hard. But the instructor made an effort to NOT do that "find the balance between effort and ease" she said. I've been hooked since that day.

I started going 3-4 times a week, I tried different studios, different styles and different instructors. It was a whole new experience and I'm still learning, I only wish I had discovered yoga earlier in life.

If you are looking to try yoga here's a couple of tips:

1. Try different studios and instructors-There are a number of different studios in my area (San Diego is a big city, if you live in a rural area your options might be limited), each with a different atmosphere and different intructors who each have their own style. You should feel comfortable in your practice.
2. Don't get competitive with the person next to you, or across the room from you. It's not a contest like seeing how much you can bench press, or leg squat. Focus inward and on that "balance between effort and ease"
3. Pay attention to how you are breathing during the poses
4. Don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be afraid to use the props (straps, blocks, etc.)

Lastly, I will say that the female to male ratio at the studio I frequent is usually around 2 to 1 and remarkably they all are models like Tara (just kidding about the last part). It is a fringe benefit, attending class regularly, you will definitely meet some interesting people and get to chat with them before and after class. Everyone has the shared experience of spending an hour in a room sweating together. So everyone can relate.

So definitely try yoga, it's good for you, you get to learn something new, and you get to meet interesting people. What else is there?

One of the best Ron Paul videos I've seen

RP's followers make vids all the time.

This youtube has over 50,000 views, over a thousand comments, and been favorited nearly 1500 times. All in 24 hours.




The Obama girl vids are the only ones I can recall that reached that "viral" stage for any of the other candidates. This one is well on its way.

A Fascinating Discussion (Audio Link)

From back in 2005. The players are Harry Browne, Eric Dondero, and Alex Jones?!?!

Harry Browne-Libertarian presidential candidate from 1996 and 2000
Eric Dondero-Former employee of Ron Paul, who is currently running for Dr. Pauls Congressional seat
Alex Jones-9/11 truther and radio host

This is from Escaping Ineffability and Ron Paul

Dr. No leaves a message

UPDATE: YOUTUBE LINK ADDED - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0pFuoJt3I

Pat Buchanan Never Liked the War in Iraq

In fact, he thinks that Bush's policies (foreign and domestic) have crippled us. From his column yesterday:

Interventionism gave us Iraq, the worst strategic blunder in U.S. history. Big Government conservatism wiped out the surplus, fattened the federal bureaucracy and enlarged its share of GDP, and destroyed the Republican reputation as America's bastion of fiscal prudence.

This Still Doesn't Quite Explain It

Right Wing News has an article entitled "Why So Many Conservatives Hate Ron Paul". One reason is his stance on the Iraq War:

When you aim that sort of rhetoric at people who strongly support the war and feel that it's justified, moral, and in America's best interests, it's guaranteed to generate a huge wave of hostility. Additionally, Paul's thoughtless, "we must leave immediately, regardless of the consequences," position on Iraq comes across as poorly thought out. Even if you thought that the war was a bad idea and opposed it from day one, the idea that we can simply extricate ourselves from Iraq immediately because it's unpleasant, with no consequences, is the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a 16 year old at an anti-war rally, not something you expect from a candidate for President. Even Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama, all of whom have spent months trying to convince their base that they're the most anti-war of all the top tier candidates, are saying we may be in Iraq for years to come.

The piece goes on to talk about how his platform is impractical, that it's too idealistic, and that he's a 9/11 truther, and that his supporters are obnoxious. The last part is true, his supporters are really, really, vocal. Obnoxious at times even. But people who buy into Ron Paul's views can't help but get excited. I get giddy when I hear Ron Paul say things about eliminating whole federal departments or ending the War on Drugs, or getting rid of the Patriot Act. His idea of the role of government in peoples lives makes sense to our collective memory. We know inherently that Ron Pauls ideas are true (just like the founding fathers did), that they are timeless. It's also true that our status as a beacon of hope for the rest of the world rests on the idea of us being a free country and getting government out of running our lives. So why do conservatives, who profess (as a principal) to believe in limited government, freedom, individual rights, hate Ron Paul?


I think that the conservatives who hate Ron Paul, to a certain extent can't bear the thought of what people would do without them. That the need to dictate to people on how to live their lives isn't monopolized by the left in this country. The conservatives who believe democracy and freedom can be imposed at the point of a gun are doing the exact same thing and telling people how to live their lives.

That's why if you look at some of the "conservative" boards. When they talk about Ron Paul, the arguments against him much degenerate into unhinged name-calling. Like what you would see on Daily Kos talking about George W.

Carl Cameron interviews Ron Paul Post New Hampshire Debate

I thought that this was after the CNBC debate, but it turns out that this came after last months New Hampshire get together.



I wonder why Carl is holding the hand held? Shouldn't he have a camera man with him?

GOP Debate right now

CNBC is having a debate, streaming live here:

http://media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/Sections/Video/CNBC_Live/player/live_video_ymyv.html

Hannity begs James Dobson not to go 3rd party route

I'm not really a big fan of Sean Hannity, but he did give James Dobson (who I'm not a big fan of) a lot of time to make his case for not endorsing Rudy Giuliani (who I'm also not a real big fan of). So why am I posting about this? Because this is where the GOP is right now, fractured and IMHO a sinking ship. The social conservatives are just the latest to make noises on bailing out on them.



Conservative Belle made this point recently:

If the conservative Christians are as powerful as they believe, then why can't they put their full weight behind a second-tier candidate who is pro-life (Brownback, Huckabee, Paul, Tancredo, Hunter, Keyes) and bring them to the front of the tier? If they are so influential in the political arena, they should be able to promote this candidate enough to soar them to the top.

The lack of top tier candidates at the recent "Values Voters" debates would seem to indicate that they are the constituency that can be ignored. The last candidate the social conservatives had an effect on was probably Ronald Reagan. Bush wasn't their number one pick in '88, neither was Dole in '96, and I believe GW Bush was nominated by social conservatives with huge reservations. To his credit, GW did come through with his Supreme Court nominations but only after massive blowback from the Harriet Miers nomination.

Use of "N-word" May End Porn Star's Career

From the Onion (NSFW warning):



Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

We are a free country in name only example #21332

Did you know that if you are leaving this country and you have more than $10,000 in cash on you have to let the government know?

So began an almost two-year battle between Zapeta and the U.S. government over whether he is legally entitled to the money after failing to declare that he was carrying more than $10,000 in U.S. currency out of the country, as the law requires. In January, a U.S. District Judge ruled the government could keep all the money but $10,000, which is to be returned to Zapeta. The case is under appeal.

Which brings up interesting legal questions. Zapeta came into this country illegally, what if he had claimed that the $60k that he had on hand was what he brought into this country? Would that money still have been subject to forfeiture? If everything he earned wasn't legal, why was the government saying he could keep $10k. Why don't they keep the whole thing?

NY City Councilman unloads on Norwegians

From Hotair:

The Norwegians are from a show called Rikets Røst, which looks like a combination of The Daily Show and the Aussie show The Chaser. That’s all the introduction you need, I think, aside from a cursory strong language warning:

Great Moments in Goldiggery

Remarkably, I came to the same exact conclusion years ago in response to the young woman's query.

The posting originally came from craigslist but it got deleted (allegedly).

Ron Paul Link-o-Rama

The MSM exposure Ron Paul is getting for having raised $5 million last quarter has been tremendous...

Interview with Wolf Blitzer from CNN:



Jack Cafferty with his take on Ron Paul and his fundraising success this quarter:



From ABC News:



MSNBC:



A notable omission is Fox News. I went looking for any mention of Ron Paul on their website and didn't see anything.

Here's some radio interviews from today:

Phil Valentine (Tennessee talk radio show host)
http://gm-diesel.com/10-04-07_Ron_Paul_on_Phil_Valentine_Show.mp3

Steve Gill (also from Tennessee)

http://www.news2wkrn.com/vv/2007/10/04/ron-paul-on-steve-gill/

Register to Vote

Liv has a new PSA out. Now the last time I heard a hot girl say "choice between douche and turd sandwich" we were partying and the next thing I remember was ending up in a hotel room in Mexico, 18 hours later, waking up in a bathtub full of ice and missing a kidney. Those were good times.



Ron Paul Girl - Register Now! - video powered by Metacafe

Check out Liv's myspace here and her blog here.

Ron Paul raised $5 million last quarter

UPDATE

MSNBC is reporting the same thing:

First Read has learned that Ron Paul has raised more than $5 million: $5,080,000 to be exact. They don't have the total number or donors just yet or the exact average donation, but the campaign tells First Read that "last quarter was a $40 average donation; that trend appears to have continued."

From Reason magazine:

Ron Paul's campaign confirms that it raised $5,080,000 in the third quarter. That's more than double the campaign's second quarter haul of $2.4 million, and as much as "comeback" candidate John McCain has reportedly raised.

By the power of grayskull I hope this train doesn't stop.

Reaction from the Values Voters Debate (part II)

For part one of Reaction from the Values Voters Debate see here

It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn
their prejudices into laws. -Thomas Sowell

A do gooder is a do gooder is a do gooder. Janet Folger suffers from the same syndrome that liberals who want to cure poverty, eliminate racism, and tackle global warming suffer from. That is the belief that government can solve all of the ills of society. It cannot, you cannot legislate morality the same way you cannot legislate eliminating poverty.

Prohibition was an attempt to legislate morality (how far from being a free society have we come? At one time a Constitutional amendment was deemed required to tell our citizens that a particular behavior was not going to be tolerated.) What it ended up doing was enriching organized crime. It certainly didn't stop people from consuming alchohol. What do we have to show for the billions spent on the war on drugs? The EXACT SAME THING. The illicit drug trade is a multibillion dollar underground industry. Legislating laws against it haven't stopped drug use. In addition, you could make the argument that a negative consequence of our strategy on the war on drugs is creation of a condition similar to our military industrial complex. There is an incentive not to change our strategy (with no regard for efficacy) because to do so would affect the special interests that benefit from our current strategy in our war on drugs (primarily government itself).

So just how powerful is the "Values Voters" coalition? The so called top tier of the GOP deemed them not powerful enough to not ignore them. Stated threats this week to back a third party didn't even meet the threshold for the flashing siren on Drudgereport. But keep in mind that the GOP has been a sinking ship for a number of years, for Christian conservatives to leave the party is a little like being odd man out on getting to the lifeboats.

The GOP has been hemorrhaging membership for years because of runaway spending, massive increases in entitlements, loss of privacy for its citizens, a nearly incoherent foreign policy, and all around incompetence and cronyism. Bush can hang his legacy hat on the tax cuts, his immediate reaction to 9/11, and his Supreme Court nominees (he almost missed out on this one, remember Harriet Miers?). Anything else? With a majority in Congress for so many years there should have been.

If social conservatism cannot be imposed by government fiat what is the alternative?

(to be continued)

Legislators Are Busy, Solving Problems

It's a good thing we have full-time legislatures in this country. With no fewer than 2 wars currently being prosecuted and massive deficit spending, the House, Senate, and SF Board of Supervisors have decided to spend their time tackling the important issues: radio talk shows.

San Francisco supervisors condemn Savage

Senate condemns Limbaugh

Hilary and Obama Sign Letter to Clear Channel Condemning Limbaugh

The Republicans are just as bad - but I can't find the link. Yesterday, they passed a resolution supporting Limbaugh. Why are we paying these people? Now - don't get me wrong, the more time they waste on this, the less time they can be spending on passing more laws, which is good. But, is this really how the government should be spending its time? It makes me want to write a letter condemning their waste of resources... if only I had time. Unlike the politicians, I actually have to work for a living.

Reaction from the Value Voters Debate

A couple of weeks ago, there was a GOP debate (more of a Q and A really) that had questions from the leaders of the "Values Voters". The distinguished questioners included Phyllis Schlafly (I'm a big fan of hers), and Joseph Farah (editor in chief of worldnetdaily.com). Worldnetdaily.com has literally been a daily stop for over a decade on my tour of websites that I frequent to get my fix since I'm an information junkie. You can watch the whole thing online here.

Janet Folger was also one of the panelists and has written her reaction and endorsement for President here. Here is what she said about Dr. Paul:

Here's what I saw: While he's been a courageous defender of the Constitution, Ron Paul had too many wrong answers at the Values Voter Debate to receive our support. Save your angry e-mails until you've seen the video of his podium lit "red" with "no votes" while everyone else voted "yes" to questions about whether they would protect disabled patients like Terri Schiavo from a starvation death, agree to prosecute all violators of the federal obscenity law, and support a trade policy with China contingent on improved human rights and quality standards.

Joe Glover of the Family Policy Network clarified it further when he asked Paul: "Many libertarians oppose laws against same-sex marriage, prostitution, and illegal drugs. Do you share this view?" Go watch it for yourself at http://www.valuesvoterdebate.com/. His answer was "yes," he's a libertarian and doesn't think the government has any business protecting marriage and human life. It was Thomas Jefferson who best outlined the role of government when he said, "The care of human life and not its destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." Mr. Paul, to protect human life is the only reason government exists – even if that human life is disabled and unable to ask for food and water themselves.

Same sex marriage, prostitution, abortion, illegal drugs. These are all issues that are of obvious importance to social conservatives (otherwise questions on these issues wouldn't have been asked multiple times). But what this much neglected wing of the GOP fails to recognize is that the tool with which they want to impose their values on others is the same tool that can and has been used against them by people who have different viewpoints.

Abortion is the classic case. By Supreme Court fiat, abortion was made legal across the country. Did individual states get to make the decision on their own by voting on it? Not at all. Is it the place of the individual states to make choices on life or death issues? Yes, states decide whether or not they can impose the death penalty. Why not abortion? What Roe vs. Wade did was take away the right and power of individual states to decide whether they wanted to kill babies or not. It sounds crude but it's true. How many innocents have died because of that usurpation of states rights by the federal government? Millions.

What Ron Paul advocates is returning the power of making the decision on whether abortion is legal or not to the states. Let them make the choice for themselves.

The "values voters" raise so many important issues. I'm going continue this in another post.

Puppies are cute