…and that makes us mighty.

The Ron Paul campaign reminds me of Firefly fandom… no that is not exactly right; the Ron Paul campaign feels like Firefly fandom. It’s not just because of the libertarianism, populism, and individualism of both movements (yes I count them both as movements). It’s also the attempt (and I hope the success) of doing the impossible. The RP Campaign is trying to raise $500k in internet donations before close of the quarter. They started this campaign today. Impossible you say? Well we can do the impossible “and that makes us mighty.”

Help us do the impossible:

https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate/

Check our progress:

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

A note from Ron Paul this weekend.

“After all, our ideas have never been needed more. The Federal Reserve is killing our dollar, the war is killing our soldiers, police-state methods are killing our civil liberties, and the income tax and bureaucratic meddling are killing our economy.”

https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate/

’nuff said.

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, say that electronic voting machines suck.

WTP Initiates National “Clean Elections” Lawsuit

Ten states are being sued to prevent the use of computerized voting systems during the 2008 primary and general elections and beyond. The lawsuit seeks to halt the use of machine-based voting systems and vote counting procedures that hide the ballots and the counting of votes from the People.  The complaint challenges the constitutionality of current voting procedures in the states, claiming that they “heighten the possibility of confusion, deception, frustration, and fraud.”  It contends that the existing practices are constitutionally deficient and prevent open, verifiable, transparent voting, and that the use of discredited electronic voting machines and flawed vote counting procedures drastically increase the likelihood of error and election fraud. The lawsuit calls for a visible chain of ballot custody with paper ballots kept in full public view throughout the voting, counting, and tallying process.  The lawsuit asks the Court to prohibit the states from conducting elections that are not open, verifiable, transparent and machine and computer free. The US Supreme Court has declared the meaning of the Right to vote, as guaranteed by the US Constitution. Individuals not only have the Right to cast a vote, they have the Right to cast an effective vote, meaning they have the Right to have their vote counted accurately.  “We need to bring transparency and accountability to the voting process throughout the states,” said Bob Schulz, who wrote the brief and is spearheading the nationwide effort. “We need to reclaim our vote and ensure that our voices are heard and that our votes are accurately counted.  The only sure way to do that is to have the People, in the light of day, observe, verify, and secure the votes cast on paper ballots and to count those ballots before the public by hand.”   The ten states that have been sued thus far include New York, New Hampshire, Illinois, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Texas, California and Oregon.  We are in the process of serving the Complaint on each state. Click here to read the Complaint. Coming soon : Surprising reaction by Illinois officials to the “Clean Elections” lawsuit and good news from developments this week at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Visit the WTP home page at www.GiveMeLiberty.org to access all the 6700 court pleadings and orders.

Metablog: Star Simpson nearly doubles my readership for all time…

File it under ‘toiling in obscurity’ and ’self deprecation’ but my post on Star Simpson got sixty hits.  Compare that to the total all time hits on the bottom right of the page (140 when I started this metablog post.)   I am not particulary seeking attention in blogging.  For me blogging is a little like venting, a little like trying to tip the balance, an exercise in daily writing, and a lot like screaming in space.  Nice that this time someone heard the scream. 

 I was angered by the way Boston’s Powers That Be over-reacted to Star’s ill-conceived art project.  I find LED’s in public spaces unthreatening. For people who are terrified of tiny electric lights I feel truly sorry.  It was, however, the ugly, cowardly, despicable ’shoot first and question after’ response from the right wing neo-con facist blogmill that decided me to post, in spite of the fact that I don’t generally feel much sympathy for stupid people.  As I said in my response to the one comment on my Star-post, if stupidity was a crime punishable by SWAT-gestapo shooting then a whole lot of bloggers (and the entire current administration as well as both houses of congress) would probably be going to the wall.

WE MUST NOT BE RULED BY FEAR, lest we lose what it means to be America, land of the Constitution, home of liberty, prosperity and a great experiment in truth.  To the blog community I say, Man up and stop advocating the shooting of stupid children for fear of a statistically insignificent danger.

Geeks beware…Homeland insecurity is terrified of LED’s

Geeks beware!  Don’t wear LED’s to Boston. Police there are ready to use deadly force to prevent ugly ass art.  File this under absurd overreactions, paranoid stupidity, and moral cowardice.  Are we really prepared to gun down coeds based on the fear of something (terrorism) statistically less perilous than automobiles?

 I’m just glad Star wasn’t harmed. One more reason to not fear terrorism.  The consequences of fear seem far worse to me than the consequences of terroism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070921/ap_on_re_us/fake_bomb

“Frontrunner” Republican candidates are coming under pressure to attend the Morgan State debates.

Maybe they’ll decide to do the right thing and pitch their platform and candidacy to minority voters as well. After all, if their message is good for America it should be beneficial to all Americans. Ron Paul is planning to attend, but then we know his platform would be good for all Americans.

Well? Rudy? Gonna man up?

read more | digg story

Wedding Singer is a mediocre play.

We went to see The Wedding Singer and part of our Broadway across America series at the Hippodrome theatre.   I was not incredibly keen on this show, but I did like the movie so I was anticipating an amusing evening.  Sadly the things that made the movie fun, nostalgic 80’s music, Adam Sandler’s comedic gold, and a sympathetic cute female lead are all absent from the stage production.

The lead played Adam Sandler’s part like a cold fish for the first quarter of the play.  Eli’s rule one for line delivery: don’t sound like your delivering a line.  Put that fellow in a paper bag and maybe he can act his way out of it by the second act.
Further, somewhat more forgivably, the opening night tech on this show was awful.  I hope the sound crew is thoroughly flogged for this, but microphones were often turned on late or not at all, and sound levels made huge parts of the sappy pop music (not even sappy eighties pop parody music) drown out what might have been witty or fun lyrics.

Also, sadly, this show brought out the nekulturny in droves.  Four ringing cellphones a horde of college aged Will and Grace pairs who pushed past us to try and steal better seats as the curtain rose (only to be turned back by angry ushers and made to wander aimlessly through the theatre to find a seat) and a standing ovation for a show that barely merited applause.

On the bright side, while the idiots were standing and cheering and drooling we managed to sneak to the parking lot and beat the traffic.

:End annoyingly snobbish elitist rant:

Fox news is/plays dumb.

Fox seems to have decided to play dumb on the Ron Paul debacle.  Todays Downsize DC cannonade is meeting with spam.  Looks like Fox has decided to stick its thumbs in its metaphoric ears.  Yesterdays email to this address received no such spam. They should give up the fair and balanced moniker and adopt the ostrich as their mascot.

 Dear FNC Viewer,

Thank you for your interest in FOX News programming. We’re sorry, but at this time FOX News Channel is not available in HDTV. However, we’ll make sure you hear about it when it is. BUT, you can get 24/7 access to the FOX News Channel live on your wireless phone or get on-demand headlines for the latest news, business and weather. Click here to find out more!

Thanks again for your interest in HDTV — your input is incredibly valuable to us!

Sincerely,
FOX News Channel

Morality: Objective? Convergently subjective? Emergent?

http://ellis14.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/my-morality-rumination/

The link may not be worth reading all of.  This fellow thinks morality is objective.  Out there in the world independent of culture.   I don’t buy that rationally although I like it viscerally.  I really am not comfortable, viscerally, with the idea of subjective morality.  Subjective morality is effectively meaningless.  I have mine you, have yours, none to judge but god if s(he) exists… Hobbes would be pleased.  What does that leave us with for a framework?  I don’t think this area of philosophy is very RW useful.  But thinking that morality is objective, immutable, independent and intelligible is either equally useless or worse.

The idea of an emergent morality, the way intelligence is emergent, or crowd behavior is emergent  has been tickling my mind.  But what would it mean. What would it look like?

Anyone?

My personal comment to Sean Hannity on my Downsize DC Message.

Hannity lied about Ron Paul and his grass roots support after the NH debates.  Fair and balanced my tailfeathers!

This was sent on top of the DownsizeDC generic message:

 Own up to your mistakes.  We asked for a retraction of your lie, not an admission of the truth.  Stop defrauding the public, stop trying to bury the only candidate interested in fighting for liberty, defending the Constitution, and preserving the Republic.  If you don’t even your most willfully ignorant viewers will discover that you are a tool of corporate and imperial interests.

PS Are you a Downsizer?  You should be.