Well, at least he wins the Atchley home phone call record of the Presidential candidates.

• 5 total calls from Obama or supporters
• 3 total calls from Ron Paul or supporters
• 1 call from Clinton

I spoke with a live person from Obama and Ron Paul campaigns, or at least a supporter cold calling.

I’m still holding out for a general election Mormon showdown between Mitt Romney and Harry Reid in 2016.

Tags: clinton,election2008,obama,Ron Paul
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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What a unique experience during the presidential primary cycle. Texas matters. I received two phone calls over the weekend asking me to vote for their candidate, one for Obama and one for Ron Paul. I’ve already “thrown my vote away,” for Ron Paul, but every time I can push the school of thought that many of Ron Paul’s views represent I’ll continue to vote outside of the frontrunners or the major parties.

Obama is going to win the Democratic primary and the election. There’s too much of a groundswell surrounding him for there to be any other outcome. I think he’ll do well to restore the US in the eyes of the rest of the world. His largely globalist view of world politics could push us more to the forefront in the various organizations we participate in, but he’s an unknown quantity in economic matters. He’s pro-consumer in his legislative rhetoric, but not damning enough towards big business to stifle. If he looked like he would cut corporate subsidy, I’d start to support him more heavily, but his rhetoric is too generic for me to know what to think. He has softened on gun control. His energy policy has a good background but his current rhetoric reflects the current chicken little viewpoint on greenhouse gasses. His healthcare viewpoints are sound as they rely on individual subsidy and avoid community rating and mandating coverage limits. I hope he remembers that younger voters are voting him in when it comes time to start pushing healthcare reform. His foreign policy seems to be UN based. I dunno. I can always “Hope” that the huge cavern of possible policy stances his rhetoric could encompass leans towards liberty over socialism.

Here’s a quote from David Boaz of the Cato institute.

The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can’t tolerate a libertarian community.

Tags: election2008,obama,politics,Ron Paul
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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Christian’s United for Israel is a multi-denominational, largely evangelical christian organization, that supports Israel. In and of itself this doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing given that a large part of the christian canon is Jewish in origin. The problem comes down to the eschatological beliefs of those who participate in this zionist meeting of minds. Far from plain old jewish zionism that asserts it’s belief that Israel and its lands belong in jewish hands, specific portions of christian eschatology are prefaced by certain happenings in the middle east. Things like: armageddon, the reconstruction of the temple of solomon (the location of which is currently taken by the second holiest location to muslims, the Dome of the Rock. Obviously the temple destruction or control of this site would have to fall in jewish hands again.) etc, etc.. would have to transpire. Evangelicals usually adopt the Pretribulationist view that believes that the rapture will occur prior to the second-coming and ensuing violent build-up to the millenium of Christ’s reign on the earth.

They propose a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran. Rhetoric from John Hagee, the organization’s leader sums up their view.

Israel’s time of need is now. There is a new Hitler in the Middle East –President Ahmadinejad of Iran — who has threatened to wipe out Israel and America and is rapidly acquiring the nuclear technology to make good on his threat. If we learned anything from the Holocaust, it is that when a madman threatens genocide we must take him seriously.

This and some other views are covered in some reporting by Max Blumenthal. Go read his article and watch the video here. You can also search for Rapture Ready on Youtube to find the video in question. Foundationally their support for Israel is only as an impetus to the tribulation period in their view of the end-times. They only support Israel in order to stir up the violence necessary for their end-times. In their terms… this is an apology for Judas. They are no better than him, as they betray the spirit of Christ’s teachings in order to usher in hell on Earth.

Tags: dangerous group,israel,rapture,zionism
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
2 Comments »

I’ve posted about this in the past, but a recent cato daily podcast spells it out succinctly. I share the expert’s opinion on this, and please note that it is not denying that climate changes exists and is most likely caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, it only draws comparisons to other dangers that threaten human life. Give the podcast a listen, it’s only about 10 minutes long.

A few thoughts: Climate change is a red herring. The end result of a marketplace shift towards “green” tech would lower or eliminate reliance on foreign oil, subvert large corporate strangleholds on areas such as automobiles, power, lighting, utilities themselves, and force better manufacturing practices among companies. It is a smart idea to adopt green technology in your personal lives where it is economically feasible. Higher efficiency saves money. One major point brought up in the podcast is the human destruction of undeveloped lands for the purposes of agriculture. One of the proposed solutions to our need for a renewable portable fuel source is biofuels. Given our need for portable and easily distributable fuel ethanol and biodiesel are currently being pushed as green technologies. Not only does a huge market increase in these items put a strain on the current agricultural production of our currently developed lands, which in turn drive up prices for those who need these fundamental food sources, but it will lead to expanding the US agriculture industry as they need more and more land to fulfill not only our food needs but our portable fuel needs as well. This could be disastrous for local environments, not only in the razing of land, but the increased pesticide usage. GM crops could help solve these issues and the normal green mentality of not consuming GM crops would be avoided as we’re not actually eating the crops.

Biodiesel from algae might be a decent short term solution but everyone is stuck on ethanol. I’d like to thank Iowa and the corn lobbyists for that.

Tags: cato,climate change,global warming,podcast
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
2 Comments »

In order save money and get a more consistent diet I’m going to start eating lunch at my desk. This would be a great time for me to make more consistent updates to our family website. There’s only so many times I can read reason, Andrew Sullivan, and levelup while waiting to see the latest fearmongering article from CNN. I used to frequent the New York Times, but everytime I look at the site all I see is a snake on the right hand corner ready to attack. Like some venemous serpent waiting to oppose common sense and thought while combining the worst of all possible schools of political thought. Yes, I’m talking about you mister William Kristol. He and Orson Scott Card should go make man-babies (I only mention Card because I used to frequent his column and blog sites). I really have to concentrate now or I’ll get distracted and start shouting into the wind.

It looks like Heather has been inspired by her sister’s consistency in updating their family blog/site, so we’ll be hearing from her much more frequently.

On the way to work today, as I do every Monday, I listened to parts of the 1up yours podcast. This week featured a new line-up with some of my favorite personalities. Namely Shawn Elliot, who usually contributes to GFW radio, and N’Gai Croal of the aforementioned Newsweek levelup blog. I mention this because The podcast from Feb 15th is particularly good. It retreats from the empowered gaming enthusiast/fanboy and jumps into a rather lengthy discussion of videogames as an expressive medium. Shawn pretty much mirrors my thoughts on the subject at hand with a few good rants on the nature of the medium being wholly different from any other medium. Gaming is at home as an expressive storytelling medium when it strays from mimicking cinema and begins to regard story as only an ambient notion of location in the playground you happen to be participating in. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to have good story or narrative, it just means the experience is most powerful when it complements the gameplay rather than just being an excuse to go from point A to point B in any given videogame.

For those wondering up until now my favorite Gaming podcast was probably GFW radio, not because its gaming related content but the fact that the line-up manages to be both intelligent and puerile at the same time. Warriors of the Web and Shawn’s consistently hilarious tales of griefing were highlights for me. I’m a little despondent and worried since Shawn is now doing 1up yours rather than GFW radio, but we’ll see how it plays out.

Time to get back to work.

Edit: Apparently Shawn will still be with GFW radio WOOHOO. They were just trolling for responses when they announced he was leaving last week.

And here’s some comments from Shawn Elliot taken from neogaf.

In my mind, the best storytelling in various mediums uniquely leverages the possibilities of those mediums. You do not read a great comic and say, ‘this might have been a book had the artist/writer felt differently on the day he decided to start drawing’; do not watch a movie and think, ‘this would have worked as well on stage’; do not look at a great painting and assume it might have been a photograph.

Think of the worst comics–so loaded with text balloons and narrative boxes that bury disconnected images beneath them, that you ask why they are comics at all and not composed entirely in text. While I do think that it is better to err the other way–where we can ask if the comic isn’t really just a storyboard in need of a Hollywood deal–great comic stories, such as Chris Ware’s (check out this week’s GFW Radio), can exist only as comics. Mediums mature when the artists who work in them develop methods unique to the mode of expression. I’m not going to give you abridged art-, cinema-, and literature-history courses here, however, I do encourage you to do some research on your own.

I’m not arguing that games can’t tell stories, but that the people who produce them are still looking for a native language to tell them with. To throw extended cutscenes in games is to acknowledge your inability to arrive at a less clumsy solution and to reveal what little faith you have in the power of games to tell stories on their own terms. When N’Gai said that games may never match the storytelling capacity of film or literature, I nodded along, assuming he was alluding to the fact that maybe interactive media aren’t suited to telling stories. In other words, you don’t tell a story to someone even as you invite them to write their own destiny. Narrative in games is a collabortive act between player and programmer, so to speak.

As for examples of various devs attempting to develop a language native to gaming–they’re all around you. When you come across the Aperature slide projector in Portal, the epiphany that results is your own. You haven’t been “told” (as in the “it’s better to show than to tell” axiom) or even really “shown”. Instead you look and discover. Same goes for when you get your first glimpse beyond the clinical test chamber walls. Imagine instead if Valve paused the game, then played a movie of you walking through a test chamber, noticing a malfunctioning platform, and then peeking inside to see what those of us who have played Portal know is there.

Tags: 1up yours,blog,gaming,story,website
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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I know I had mentioned that I wouldn’t discuss Ron Paul much more, but a huge controversy over his background came up again. It’s an issue I had previously written about here. This is specifically about the newsletters that had been penned in between the period of his Libertarian run for president and his current run as a Republican congressman. They came to the forefront on the day of New Hampshire primaries based on a hit piece by a writer over at The New Republic. Even if not actually penned by Dr. Paul there’s some obvious white nationalist thought published under his name during that time period. Please note these were also associated with a gold investment company that pushed it’s association with the aforementioned newsletters. Dr. Paul has not come forward with the name of the person/persons involved in the publication of the newsletters with these comments in them.

Some interesting things have happened since then though. Let me frame the implosion. There are two major institutions/think-tanks that push libertarian thought. One is the Cato Institute, and the other is the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Their respective online support comes in the form of Reason Magazine (of which I am a subscriber) for the Cato Institute (note: the Cato Institute has a larger influence on political thought) and LewRockwell.com for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. There had always seemed to be a rift between the two organizations, and I never knew why. Now I do (link to a long article at reason.com regarding authorship). Anyway, here’s a summation from a former Ron Paul staffer.

Dear Lew,

You have now had three opportunities –1996, 2001, and 2008 — to prove that you are a friend of Ron Paul and freedom, and you have failed to do so each time.

This week, for the third time, the puerile, racist, and completely un-Pauline comments that all informed people say you have caused to appear in Ron’s newsletters over the course of several years have become an issue in his campaign. This time the stakes are even higher than before. He is seeking nationwide office, the Republican nomination for President, and his campaign is attracting millions of supporters, not tens of thousands.

Three times you have failed to come forward and admit responsibility for and complicity in the scandals. You have allowed Ron to twist slowly in the wind. Because of your silence, Ron has been forced to issue repeated statements of denial, to answer repeated questions in multiple interviews, and to be embarrassed on national television. Your callous disregard for both Ron and his millions of supporters is unconscionable.

If you were Dr. Paul’s friend, or a friend of freedom, as you pretend to be, by now you would have stepped forward, assumed responsibility for those asinine and harmful comments, resigned from any connection to Ron or his campaign, and relieved Ron of the burden of having to repeatedly deny the charges of racism. But you have not done so, and so the scandal continues to detract from Ron’s message.

You know as well as I do that Ron does not have a racist bone in his body, yet those racist remarks went out under his name, not yours. Pretty clever. But now it’s time to man up, Lew. Admit your role, and exonerate Ron. You should have done it years ago.

John Robbins, Ph.D.
Chief of Staff
Dr. Ron Paul, 1981-1985

Regarding this news lewrockell.com is coming off of my links and bookmarks.

Tags: election2008,politics,Ron Paul
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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Here’s a long interview the Houston Chronicle did with Ron Paul. This is the reason I’m voting for him, and continue to donate and push his campaign.

Part 1 (link)

Part 2 (link)

Part 3 (link)

Part 4 (link)

Part 5 (link)

Tags: election 2008,Ron Paul
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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Link from wonkette.

Here’s the breakdown based on number of contributions from active and retired military.

NAME: TOTAL [ARMY] [NAVY] [AIRFORCE] [VETERAN]

RON PAUL: 23,465 [6,975] [6,765] [4,650] [5,075]
McCain: 15,825 [6925] [6305] [1795] [800]
Romney: 3,551 [2,051] [0] [1500] [0]
Rudy: 2,320 [1,450] [370] [250] [250]
Hunter: 1000 [0] [1000] [0]
Huckabee: 750 [250] [0] [500]
Tancredo: 350 [350] [0] [0]
Brownback: 71 [71] [0] [0]
Thompson: 0 [0] [0] [0]

You can’t call them cowards or America haters. What amazing people, God bless our troops.

Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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I have never in my life thought I would put any sort of effort or care behind a Presidential candidate. I just wanted to report for all the naysayers that believe the Ron Paul campaign is a small group of rabid fans, that I just donated some money to his campaign. I also have some T-Shirts and bumper stickers on the way.

Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
1 Comment »

I’m not sure how many people saw Ron Paul’s performance in the South Carolina debates last week, but he hit one out of the park with his analysis of US foreign policy and the concept of blowback. Taken in the short form he stated that, “[terrorists are] over here because we are over there.” Giuliani pulled out the 9/11 card and rebutted with, “That’s really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 9/11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I have ever heard that before, and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.” Giuliani and anyone who agrees with him needs to read Bin Laden’s own statements or the 9/11 commission report (not the actual report, actual report is huge but the executive summary is here).

The exchange between Congressman Paul and Rudy Giuliani was a clear line in the sand for the neo-conservative frontrunners, and the response, at least on the internet, has reflected how out of touch mainstream media is with the American people. There is one thing that mainstream media can do better than anyone; spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD for the internet uninitiated). Post debate there has a been some quick attempts to smear Ron Paul. I’ll quickly address them.

1. Ron Paul is blaming America for 9/11 - false
This is obviously untrue and only a misrepresentation of what was actually said in the debate. There is a difference between crime and motive. Ron Paul called into question the terrorist motivations for their activities. They don’t attack us because they hate freedom, they attack us because we are over there, bombing, nation building, sanctioning, betraying, and facilitating wars and strife.

2. Ron Paul is part of the 9/11 conspiracy movement - false
This stems from the fact that this movement seems to be an avid supporter of Ron Paul. Why wouldn’t they, he’s probably the most vocal congressmen when it comes to free speech and limited government. He just happens to have something in common with the conspiracy theorists, he believes the Government wields too much power. He has never stated anything in-line with any of these factions within US political commentary.

3. Ron Paul is a Racist - false
Most of this is leveled at some comments within a 1996 Ron Paul newsletter that Rep. Paul has disavowed. The comments were not written by representative Paul and he was quick to refute them when asked about them in 1998. There has been some expanded criticism supposed racists personal beliefs due to some specific racist groups being Ron Paul supporters. Again, just like the conspiracy movement, anyone for free speech and limited government is going to be a shoe in for their support. This is almost purely limited to a specific dailykos blog. (I can’t find it now, I’ll keep googling for it.)

Ron Paul is truly an iconoclast within modern politics. Smearing him based on misinformation isn’t going to work as easily as with your typical pandering politician. He has been 100% constitutional in his voting record and needs only tell the truth to get his message across. Individuals may disagree with him on his opinions, but they won’t win any debates with him until they start discussing opinion and fact instead of grasping for soundbytes.

Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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