Last Call

And The New Republic sticks a fork in Ron Paul.  The fork is labeled "racist douchebag" but it's tastefully lettered, and there plenty of citations of other various bigotries besides racism from Ron Paul's publications, including gay-bashing, antisemitism, and just plain tinfoil idiocy.

Highlights of the collection:

“A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism” analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.”

The July 1992 Ron Paul Political Report declares, “Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems,” and defends David Duke. The author of the newsletter—presumably Paul—writes, “My youngest son is starting his fourth year in medical school. He tells me there would be no way to persuade his fellow students of the case for economic liberty.”

The September 1994 issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report states that “those who don’t commit sodomy, who don’t get blood a transfusion, and who don’t swap needles, are virtually assured of not getting AIDS unless they are deliberately infected by a malicious gay.”


The October 1992 issue of the Political Report paraphrases an “ex-cop” who offers this strategy for protecting against “urban youth”: “If you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example).”

The January 1988 Ron Paul Political Report approvingly cites Dr. William C. Douglass, who “believes that AIDS is a deliberately engineered hybrid” developed at a World Health Organization experiment conducted at Ft. Detrick. Douglass has long been a fringe medical guru, and today claims that “smoking can help you live longer!!!”

The November 1992 Ron Paul Survival Report defends chess champion and Holocaust-denier Bobby Fischer, saying that “the brilliant Fischer, who has all the makings of an American hero, is very politically incorrect on Jewish questions, for which he will never be forgiven, even though he is a Jew. Thus we are not supposed to herald him as the world’s greatest chess player.”

Here's the thing, Paul's had this particular load of nitroglycerine in his luggage for years, in several cases well over decades.  How was he able to get re-elected in Texas as a Congressman every two years with this?  These are not new, people.  Ron Paul's been an asshole for a very, very long time.

It's the people on the left that support Paul that I don't get.  You have to overlook all of this atrocious, foul vitriol before you even get to his policies or positions, and you have to do so through either staggering ignorance or agreement with him.

Not only do I think Ron Paul is suspect, but the people telling me to support Ron Paul have no business being listened to for advice.

About As Grudging As It Comes

CNN's David Gergen seems almost disappointed that the President's prospects for re-election have improved this year as the GOP has dropped the ball again and again.

Even though House Republicans are now wisely folding their tents, their disarray this week over extending a payroll tax cut has left a sour taste at year's end in Washington, contributing in no small part to an even bigger political story: the resurrection of President Obama and his fellow Democrats heading toward the 2012 elections.


After the debt ceiling debacle of last summer, the conventional wisdom among many political analysts was that Obama would go the way of President Jimmy Carter, that Republicans would lose a few seats in the House but retain control, and that the GOP would surge into power in the Senate. In short, Republicans were looking for a clean sweep.

Who believes that now? Obama is still highly vulnerable and could lose, but the CNN poll coming out of the field this week reveals a remarkable turnaround, especially in the past month.

Gergen then goes on to completely misread the why of the situation as well, seemingly dumbfounded as to why Elizabeth Warren is looking very good against Scott Brown in Massachusetts, wondering aloud why Jeb Bush isn't running, and still refusing to give the President any credit for the economic improvement.

In other words, he's one miffed Republican, our David.  But that's okay, he does arrive at the correct conclusion through the tortured logic:

Even so, we are witnessing an important change in the political landscape -- and it could be lasting. Republicans well remember the mid-1990s when they seized power in Congress and Speaker Newt Gingrich went mano-a-mano with President Bill Clinton. For a while, Gingrich had the upper hand, but Clinton then outmaneuvered him on two governmental shutdowns -- and when the momentum turned in Clinton's favor, he rode it to an easy re-election. No one should doubt that could happen again.

Ironically, it's Newt himself providing that same impetus.  Now that we're seeing the bottom of the GOP candidate barrel and Orange Julius's true colors, it's the Republicans who have been exposed for what they are, and what they can't do for the country.

No mention of the other big political movement in the last six months either:  Occupy Wall Street.  Pretty silly stuff here, even from a Villager like Gergen.

Hot Pair On The Market

NASA's Kepler project continues to come up with awesome data, like these two Earth-sized planets orbiting a star like our own Sun.

The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are the smallest planets outside the solar system confirmed around a star like the Sun, NASA said in a statement.

The planets are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface.

"This discovery demonstrates for the first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we are able to detect them," Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in the statement.

The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth.

Kepler-20f is slightly larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius. Both planets are in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, about 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.

Being able to detect Earth-sized planets in distant solar systems is pretty important if your goal is finding other Earth-like planets out there.  We're not going to find anyone waving back I suspect in my lifetime, but at some point in human history we're going to find something out there, somewhere.

That is if we don't blow ourselves up, cook our atmosphere, or flood the planet first.  Even money on which happens first down the road.

Semi-Sweet Justice

When an 81-year-old woman thought her daughter had been killed, she charged the criminals and beat them with her aluminum cane.  At least one shot was fired at her but missed.

"I thought she was dead," Lopez said. "I yelled at [the gunman], 'I am going to kill you, [son of a b----]!' I wasn't myself. To me, she was dead."

The daughter, Teresa Medina, on Wednesday sported a large bruise under her left eye, where she says she was pistol-whipped. She had scrapes and bruises on her arms and back.

Hialeah police were still trying to find the assailant and a getaway driver, who escaped with the daughter's purse despite the efforts of the 4-foot-9 Lopez.

They may have also been trying to steal the vehicle. The loss of the purse is more terrifying for the personal information we often keep tucked in our bag, considering the criminals may not feel too forgiving.  Mother and daughter are afraid to leave the house until the criminals are caught. They have changed their holiday plans and will be hosting events so they are more comfortable. I would assume the criminals are done with them, but there is no understanding The Stupid and what they might do.

Still, anytime an octogenarian kicks a little ass, you can bet it will be proudly hailed on Zandar Versus The Stupid.

A Fabulous Victory Against Stupidity

Someone I follow on Facebook linked to this, and I am ever so grateful that I checked it out.  I read a lot of news, but this one skated past me.  This is a speech given by a 19-year-old man who was raised by two women.  If you have a minute, please watch it because he makes so many good points the only way I could touch on them all would be a complete transcript.



I wonder how Michele Bachmann would respond to this? Do you think she would tell this man his family is broken and needs healing?

I wonder what Perry would say. His ego can't process that though he doesn't "believe in gay marriage" it exists, and legal citizens are denied representation.

Would Eye of Newt tell him to follow Obama because there is no place for him in his America?  Oh wait, he already did that.

This is a brilliant speaker who actually moved me to tears. He is simple, honest, and not afraid of himself or where he came from. He is everything the GOP hates, a successful "other" who may threaten their assigned levels of worth.  This young man uses logic and a lifetime of accomplishment to shoot a hole in their theory.

I guess now they'll have to go back to The Gay Is Catching or another tried and true distraction.

Cross posted at Angry Black Lady's site.

That's Nobody's Business But The Turks'

The bloody Turkish history of the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire a hundred years ago is still something the current Turkish government refuses to talk about.  Now French President Nicolas Sarkozy has raised the stakes by considering legislation slapping down Turkey for the act and criminalizing the genocide's denial in order to win over French Armenians as elections approach, and Turkey is immediately and angrily responding with sanctions against Paris.

Ankara will announce sanctions against Paris, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday on the eve of a debate in the French parliament on a law criminalising the denial of the Armenian genocide by Turkish forces.


“Tomorrow probably I will announce what we will do at the first stage and we will announce what kind of sanctions we will have at the second and third stages,” Erdogan said late Wednesday, according to Anatolia news agency.

He said the move by French President Nicolas Sarkozy was aimed at electoral gains and would “harm Franco-Turkish relations.”

France’s estimated 400,000-strong ethnic Armenian population is seen as an important element in Sarkozy’s support base as he prepares for a tough re-election battle in April next year.

The French parliament is on Thursday expected to approve the bill, which would see anyone in France who publicly denies the 1915 genocide face a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros ($58,000).

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed during World War I by the forces of Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire, a figure Ankara disputes.

The US and Britain have had their share of problems with Turkey since the US Congress passed a resolution condemning the genocide last year and it doesn't look like relations with Turkey and the West are going to improve anytime soon, either.

Well There's At Least One Giant Ass Involved Here

Somebody is off Michelle Obama's Christmas card list.  For good.

Wisconsin’s GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R) has a beef (and a side of mash potatoes) (with extra butter) (tip your waitress) with First Lady Michelle Obama, particularly with her attempts to promote healthier eating and exercise habits.


According to a “Democratic operative” who shared his or her story with Fishbowl DC, Sensenbrenner, speaking loudly on his phone at Reagan National Airport’s Delta Crown lounge, relayed a story that happened following a church auction: After he’d bought a bunch of “crap,” a woman came up to Sensenbrenner and praised the First Lady, prompting him to muse that “she lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”

Yeah, see, I'm thinking that commenting publicly on the size of the First Lady's ass is something that polite human beings would not do if they were in Congress, but apparently Republicans just really, really hate Michelle Obama.   Now, we've known the fact for a while now that the only thing that Republicans can't stand more than a black President is the black President's successful, intelligent and attractive wife who wants people to eat a bit healthier, but at this point I'm thinking that the endless Michelle Obama hate is starting to drive a real wedge in the party.

You know, considering how Republicans really feel about the President and his family, you just have to eventually reassert your humanity just to get away from the GOP.

StupidiNews!

• A series of earthquakes has rattled Christchurch, New Zealand again, prompting warnings of aftershocks for wary citizens.
• A Federal court has blocked key provisions in South Carolina's controversial immigration law, Act 69, from taking effect on January 1.
• House Republicans have given in and agreed to a two month extension over the holidays for payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits.
• Weekly unemployment claims dropped to their lowest level since April 2008 as the labor market appears to be on the move up.
• The FCC has approved the first broadband device for use on the old analog TV band of the spectrum.