Ron Paul!

"It's certainly crossed my mind," Paul told The Ballot Box of a potential run for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-Texas) Senate seat next year.

New numbers out Wednesday from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found Paul was second only to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R) among Texas Republicans asked who they want to see run for the seat in 2012.

The poll found Dewhurst to be the top choice of Republicans, garnering 23 percent support. But Paul was right behind him as the pick of 20 percent of GOP voters.

Really Texas? Really?

Personally, I don't believe any polling at this point. 2012 is just too far away. if we learned anything from the pronouncements about the death of the GOP after Obama's election, it's that everything can change in 2 years.

Still, Paul would have a lot of advantages in a primary race: high name recognition, a huge fund-raising base and of course an army of, um, dedicated followers. Oh and don't forget the blimp.

On the upside, if he does run for the Senate, at least the rest of us won't have to suffer watching him run for President again.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:53 AM | Comments (215)
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He asked me to keep you safe. But that's too risky. Better just to keep you quiet.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:06 AM | Comments (222)
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I'd still like to find a few good paragraphs on "how to see" abstract art. If anyone knows of something, put up a link. I'm not much of an art critic, but I'm open to different types of art and usually certain about likes and dislikes. Here is part of a discussion with CAC about something he posted in the Late Night Art Thread a few weeks ago:

Lavender Mist, Jackson Pollack, 1950.
Oil, enamel and aluminum paint on canvas 86½”x119”.
National Gallery of Art (Washington).

On that Jackson Pollock? Here's a cool trick I learned from looking at stars and the Milky Way. Look at the picture and then, very deliberately, plug in the following thoughts: Hazy/blurry/fuzzy objects are far away. Objects with more form are closer. Objects in sharp focus are close by. That Pollack you posted looked like a fall or winter morning before sunrise, looking through the trees.

Suddenly, the Pollack snaps into perspective ("atmospheric perspective" is what is being put to use), and it has *tremendous depth*. (Do the same on a clear night when you can see the Milky Way. You can see where we are in the galaxy, since distance accounts for brightness of stars more than intrinsic brightness--since space is so big. Warning: When it snaps into perspective, it can cause vertigo.)

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Amateur criticism indeed. For me, the Pollock does have tremendous depth, and it really does look like a crisp winter dawn. I don't know if that was his intention or "the accepted view"--most certainly it is not--but that is what I see, and there is an inherently strong subjective element to the appreciation of art. I love it, but I wanted to put it up again tonight because many people reacted negatively to it. Try the "atmospheric perspective" trick mentioned above and take note of structure on different scales and see if you feel the same way.

For a completely different kind of art, here is some fascinating kinetic sculpture by Theo Jansen:

Now on to moron art. I can't help but think a couple of the submissions I got last night are tongue-in-cheek, but pickings are light, so I'm putting up all of them. I'll be doing the art thread next week, so if anyone has anything they would like to submit, send it to rdbrewer4(at)yadayadayadagmail.com. Replace the "(at)" with "@" and take out the yada yada yada. Please include information on the date, the medium, and film type and camera settings, if applicable, and anything else you feel is relevant. Maybe with more than 24 hours notice, we will get more submissons. And then I'll ignore pieces named "Poophead." more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 06:33 PM | Comments (130)
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I grew up on a farm where we hunted for the dinner table. To me, guns are like 12-sided dice are to Ace...so I figured I'd pitch in my two cents worth on this issue. I'm not dissing The Boss-Man, because I agree with damn near everything he said earlier, just giving a different perspective.

I'm not really a big fan of high-cap magazines on pistols. I've always been more of a "be a better shot and you won't need so damn much ammo" guy, and I know from experience that when you go from a single shot gun to a repeater the temptation is to let your marksmanship skills slide because you can now "spray & pray".

With all that said, I can't come up with a single good reason to use the power of the State to limit the allowable magazine capacity on firearms.

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Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 05:12 PM | Comments (255)
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When words are banned, only outlaws will have the proper words.

Cr0ssha1rs: The New Forbidden Word

At least on CNN:

CNN's John King: "Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. My friend Andy Shaw used the term 'in the crosshairs' in talking about the candidates. We're trying, we're trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend, he's covered politics for a long time, but we're trying to get away from that kind of language."

Allahpundit retorts:

Am I hallucinating or didn’t this same network [CNN] once have an entire show devoted to heated political debate called … “Crossfire”? With a crosshairs logo? How did the republic survive while it was on the air?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:56 PM | Comments (579)
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The difference between "Opt-In" and "Opt-Out" approaches has been thoroughly hashed out on the internet, and it's quite clear that while they are theoretically equivalent (i.e., both allow the user to make the appropriate decision), in practice they are so different as to be on completely different moral levels. I guess it's no surprise to find that the Democrats in my state have picked the road less moral in proposing that you should be forced to "Opt-Out" of one of the most personal decisions you'll ever make.

I'm referring to Colorado's recently submitted "Presumed Consent" bill, which:

...would change the process for renewing driver's licenses and ID cards so applicants are assumed to be organ and tissue donors unless they initial a statement that says they want to opt out.

Of course I support organ donation, and though I doubt any of the livers among the readership of this blog will be of use, I highly recommend that AoSHQers do sign up as organ donors.

Voluntarily. Because all our bods are belong to us.

UPDATE: As recommended by mamma b - Monty Python's take on organ donation.

Posted by: Geoff at 03:58 PM | Comments (145)
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Three Democrats joined the Republicans, while no Republicans joined the Democrats, meaning -- Bipartisan Advantage, baby!

Not so's anyone will notice, of course.

At Hot Air, a potential maneuver to at least force the Senate to vote on this (over Harry Reid's objection, naturally). Rule 22, apparently.

Naturally, as you know, we won't have 60 votes to overcome a filibuster but still it must be done, eh?

Posted by: Ace at 03:34 PM | Comments (65)
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Update: See the long excerpt under the fold. The report is damning -- not just about Gosnell, but the entire government/medical complex that enabled and encouraged Gosnell. It specifically notes high officials have "lawyered up" rather than answer grand jury questions.

This is big.

Question (which I don't know the answer to): Are grand jury reports typically written with a sort of personal, emotional vibe? Or were the events here so repulsive they couldn't keep to a dry recitation of facts?

Really vile stuff, which is almost certainly -- like 99% -- going to make this a very real political issue and, yes, allow pro-lifers some room to restrict abortion. At least they'll be able to take a stand on what Barack Obama wouldn't, that is, the simple murder of delivered-by-abortion but very living babies.

Did I say delivered-by-abortion? Actually, it seems that usually he just induced a standard labor, delivered the baby, and killed it.

Since we're talking about a "climate of hate" and politics and such: Could it possibly be the case that politics is responsible for this? Um, according to the report, that's not even really a live question.

We discovered that PennsylvaniaÂ’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers. Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety.

The State Legislature has charged the Department of Health (DOH) with responsibility for writing and enforcing regulations to protect health and safety in abortion clinics as well as in hospitals and other health care facilities. Yet a significant difference exists between how DOH monitors abortion clinics and how it monitors facilities where other medical procedures are performed.

Indeed, the department has shown an utter disregard both for the safety of women who seek treatment at abortion clinics and for the health of fetuses after they have become viable. State health officials have also shown a disregard for the laws the department is supposed to enforce. Most appalling of all, the Department of HealthÂ’s neglect of abortion patientsÂ’ safety and of Pennsylvania laws is clearly not inadvertent: It is by design.

Emphasis in original. Thanks to Hot Air for suggesting I start reading this gruesome document.

Pretty Horrifying: It's a 200+ page read but they're short pages and it reads, yeah, like a horror movie, except it's real, and except that there will in fact be apologists for it.

This section is... well, destined to be embargoed by a media outlet near you.
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Posted by: Ace at 02:38 PM | Comments (316)
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I'm assuming the "as per prophecy" because where else do you get a specific year like 2012?

Plate tectonics? Really? After barely moving for 50,000 years you know they're going to violently surge, George? Next year?

Well, anyway.

If you have not seen this great wrap-up to that psycho pizza-roll guy's epic review of the Star Wars prequels, watch it. I thought he would be out of interesting cuts on Lucas by now, but no, he impressed me with a couple of other sharp-eyed insights. Like the staging/blocking of the series' endless couch/window talk-talk scenes, or why people never run in the prequels.

Oh: He reviews Star Trek (the 09 reboot) too, giving it a mostly positive review (but sort of a negative positive review). Oddly, he mentions plate tectonics.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (374)
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I haven't seen it yet. (And I don't plan to; this is aimed squarely at tweeners, and I am not a tweener.)

An argument will be made that "context" saves it but no, it doesn't; you don't sell sex to tweeners under any circumstances, with any "context."

Even the old-style way of selling lascivious material, made famous by dime-store pulp magazines -- where you sell sex and sin for 30 pages, then wrap it up with a two page "and here's how everyone suffered for their sins" bit of morality-play CYA -- doesn't work, and never did work, because everyone knew (even at the time) that those last two pages were dull and obligatory and only inserted in the text to avoid obscenity prosecutions. (The bafflingly weird narrator's list of idiotic "lessons" to be learned from the lascivious doings in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls seemed to be that sort of CYA sort of thing, but so arch and silly as to constitute a parody of the trope at the same time.)

So, yeah, I don't really care about context.

MTV continues to be a monstrous thing. It's evil, and CBS should be made to pay a price for being part of the MTV porn-for-tweeners company Viacom.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (212)
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