DavidS. writes and quotes this in a comment to yet another attempt by Reason to spin and minimize the sins of their shrieky, freaky Messiah.

This is not from a newsletter, but a letter to supporters sent out under the letterhead of 'Congressman Ron Paul' and signed by hand (probably photocopied).

I have unmasked the plot for world government, world money, and world central banking. Planned exchange controls to hold you hostageÂ…while the dollar drops down a holeÂ…

I revealed the Red debt bomb set to explode in your bank account…The real, financial reasons Bush invaded Panama. The nightmare of a ‘cashless society’ (watch out for it, if they get away with the New Money)…

IÂ’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges donÂ’t scare me. Threats or not threats, IÂ’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.)

The Bohemian Grove – perverted, pagan playground of the powerful Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica. And the Soviet-style ‘smartcard’ the Justice Department has in mind for you.

There are eight pages of this stuff...

Doesn't it rather suggest that, if Paul has some loonies in his ranks, they are there because he asked them to join?

Just slightly, David.

Stay classy, Reason Magazine. You're a joke now.

Let me amend: You already were a joke. Now you're a sad joke that apologizes for racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and general lunacy so long as it advances your legalize-drugs agenda.

You know when the rest of us wrote Paul off? His unapologetic, unending game of footsie with the Truthers and Alex Jones.

How come all you geniuses didn't catch wise at that point?

And by the way: Seriously, read all eight pages of this lunatic screed. Signed by Paul on his Congressional letterhead.

But it wasn't Paul writing it, of course. It was some other lunatic he paid to capture that certain Paulesque je ne se qua.

He didn't read the schizophrenic letter, with its talk of "chemical taggants" in currency designed to trip off federal sensors and instantaneously inform the government where you were and what you were buying. Nor even the book the letter was designed to sell.

He's just all about limited government. That's all. All this other crap? Someone else.

But really: Read it. It's fun. It's entertaining. It's funtertaining.

Ron Paul

The only racist, anti-Semitic diagnosable paranoid schizophrenic who can save America.

PS: The solicitation for the book promises -- in exchange for $50 of cash marked with federal tracking chemical taggants -- a subscription to The Ron Paul Political Report as well as The Ron Paul Investment Report.

But these newsletters, offered to the public in exchange for money, meant nothing at all to Ron Paul.

He never read them, I can assure you. Certainly he didn't write them.

Except the parts that you might like. Which can be reprinted and sent to you for just $50 in "New Money" designed to enslave you.

Incidentally... Let's say we put aside Ron Paul's racism, homophobia, and anti-semitism for a moment.

How about you folks at "Reason" just take a stab and defending the man's very sanity?

Money marked with "chemical alarms" to track you through airports?

Are.

You.

Fucking.

Kidding.

Me.

What's Dr. Paul's position on the secret messages encoded in Cacher In The Rye, praytell?

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 PM | Comments (36)
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It appears our European allies arenÂ’t going to pony up enough troops for Afghanistan this year, so the Pentagon is considering sending 3,000 Marines there on a seven month deployment.

Â…(Defense Secretary Robert) Gates' thinking on the issue has "progressed a bit" over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight.

"The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load," the spokesman said.

Morrell said the move, first reported Wednesday by ABC News, was aimed at beating back "another Taliban offensive" that is expected this spring — as has occurred in previous years.

When Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces.

I thought Afghanistan was the good war, the one we all agreed on? Yet some countries canÂ’t seem find the troops to fight it.

On the upside, the Marines have been trying to get in on the action in Afghanistan for awhile. Apparently Anbar Province is quiet, too quiet for hard charging Marines at least.

My guess is the Taliban and al Qaeda will be begging NATO to send more troops, hell they might even chip in some money. I mean if you were a terrorist thug, who would you want hunting your ass down, some Scandi guy in a soldier suit or a US Marine?

Posted by: DrewM. at 06:26 PM | Comments (81)
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Some folks might be getting a little greedy.

Of roughly 489,000 total claims, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has received 247 for at least $1 billion apiece, including the one for $3 quadrillion.

"That's the mother of all high numbers," said Loren Scott, a Baton Rouge-based economist.

For the sake of perspective: A mere $1 quadrillion would dwarf the U.S. gross domestic product, which Scott said was $13.2 trillion in 2007. A stack of one quadrillion pennies would reach Saturn.

Stack of pennies. You're killing me. Use large bills, genius. Sheesh.

Some residents may have grossly exaggerated their claims to send a message to the corps, which has accepted blame for poorly designing the failed levees.

"I understand the anger," Scott said. "I also understand it's a negotiating tactic: Aim high and negotiate down."

Ah, negotiation, gotcha. Well, hopefully government lawyers can chisel a quadrillion or so off that figure before we have to hand over the whole continent plus Hawaii and fuckin' Guam to this one guy.

Posted by: LauraW. at 05:02 PM | Comments (41)
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Researchers at RPI have discovered that malarial mosquitoes have the same receptor attractive to the malaria parasite that humans do.

... But instead of treating humans infected by malaria, Robert Lindhardt wants to treat infected mosquitoes.

"The mosquito is as much a victim as we are, but nobody thinks of the mosquito that way," said Lindhardt, a biochemist and acting director of RPI's Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies...

...It was grueling work under a microscope. Sure enough, the Anopheles stephensi, the mosquito that carries the form of malaria that infects humans, has the same receptor...

...Lindhardt hopes his discovery may lead to a cheap and safe cure, and he'll pursue that cure in the next phase of his research. It could be a drug cocktail that blocks the receptor in mosquitoes, or maybe creating genetically altered mosquitoes that could overtake the wild population.

The approach of treating the mosquito has the advantage of being less controversial, Lindhardt said -- nobody cares if the mosquitoes suffer any side effects...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:50 PM | Comments (28)
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This post is representative. It's all spin, apologetics, feigned credulity, tu quoque, and ipse dixit.

I think Paul's prone to nutty conspiracy theories, but I don't think he's a racist, at least not today. Perhaps there was a time when he held views that I and many people reading this site would find repugnant. But I certainly don't think that's the case now.

Oh?

As I wrote previously, there's a big difference between a real libertarian who joins the movement due to a belief in the power of freedom and someone using libertarianism as a flag of convenience to add respectability to retrograde and repugnant views. Ron Paul's positions don't indicate that he's terribly interested in freedom so much as he's interested in keeping the Jews from stealing his gold.

His goldbuggery? He's trying to keep "international bankers" (wink, wink) from "manipulating" currencies to enrich themselves at the expense of normal, patriotic people. Normal, patriotic people who spin no dreidls and do not control the media. Savvy?

His foreign policy? He just wants to keep "the Jewish lobby" -- "the most powerful lobby in America," he says -- from getting the US to fight more wars on behalf of Israel.

Oh, and he wants to stop fighting in the Middle East and stop supporting foreign countries. Let me just postulate, based on Ron Paul's long record on such issues, that he's chiefly interested in ceasing animosity with Israel's enemies and most passionate about ending support of Israel. The other countries are just added for consistency. We can see what's animating this little anti-semitic cunt.

He's just "prone to nutty conspiracy theories," eh? Let me paraphrase Umberto Eco by saying There is no conspiracy theory on the planet that does not, at some point, involve the Jews.

This is rather obvious. I can count on one hand the conspiracy theories I've heard that didn't involve Jews, "international bankers," Mossad, or Golda Fucking Meir at the center of the web of manipulation.

Who the fuck did Reason think Ron Paul had in mind for the ultimate malefactors of the Vast International Banker Conspiracy? The Knights Fucking Templar?

At the heart of every conspiracy theory is irrational hatred and scapegoating, boys. Not "Love," not even the backwards kind of love in R3VO_|ution.

Was it really up to me to alert the brain trust at Reason of this fact? You guys didn't sort of figure that out on your own?

No wonder you were so blindsided. Committed conspiracy-nut suspects International Jewry might be up to some malfeasance. Surely no one could have seen that surprise twist coming. It's like the end of The Usual Suspects, except Keyser Sose turns out to be Rabbi Moishe Lefkowitz.

Reason can take its pose of being shocked, shocked to find anti-semitism in the heart of an anti-Israel, anti-AIPAC, anti-"international banker" conspiracy nutter and stick it straight up its wannabe-hipster ass.

Most at Reason -- most; one can detect a bit of disgust in Dave Wiegel's rather brief post -- assert to us that they believe Ron Paul didn't write the newsletters. None of them. Or at least not the objectionable parts.

O RLY?

reason: What do you think of Martin Luther King?

Paul: Martin Luther King is one of my heroes because he believed in nonviolence and that's a libertarian principle. Rosa Parks is the same way. Gandhi, I admire. Because they're willing to take on the government, they were willing to take on bad laws. So I believe in civil disobedience if you understand the consequences. Martin Luther King was a great person because he did that and he changed America for the better because of that.

reason: You didn't write the derogatory things about him in the letter?

Paul: No.

At the very end of that very same newsletter:

Yes, Paul's wife's name is indeed Carol and he does have grandchildren.

The idea that Ron Paul published this screedy, LaRouchian crap for twenty years and never once inquired into precisely what contents may lie therein is so transparently absurd I'm literally angry to read the supposed smarty-pants Poindexters at Reason attempting to spin this as plausible.

This was Ron Paul's periodic manifesto to his like-minded political brethren.

This was a newsletter that cost money to produce and disseminate, particularly if we are to believe that Lew Rockwell spent so much of his free time writing anti-semitic and racist zingers under the pen name "Ron Paul."

This most likely was the source of some amount of income for Ron Paul, as he claims he had some 100,000 subscribers at one point.

This was Ron Paul's attempt to keep in the mind of possible future voters, and donors (Ron Paul loves him some donors!), should he return to Congress (as he ultimately did).

And you are trying to sell me on the idea that Ron Paul had no idea what published in this piece of shit rag, ever?

He never once read his own newsletter? Never asked Lew Rockwell, his conspiracy-addled, Jew-hating, black-savagery-noting partner in crime (and best bud) what this month's issue might be all about?

Tell me: Did Ron Paul ever issue a missive to his supposed ghostwriter to clean up his act? Can anyone at Reason point to newsletter apologizing for the inflammatory and hateful tone of a previous issue? Is there a date certain at which point this sort of hateful language stops entirely, thus lending at least thin credence to the notion that Ron Paul didn't approve of such sentiments and stopped them the moment he got wind of them?

As no one has yet noted any of the above, I take the answer to be "No."

Here are some more apologetics:

Any time you're a fringe candidate cobbling together support from those who feel disaffected and left behind by the two-party system, you're going to end up bumping elbows with a few weirdos.

True enough, but when you're cobbling such support from Stormfront, Alex Jones' Prison Planet lunatics, Truthers, etc., perhaps you ought to step back and ask if this is the sort of coalition you're comfortable associating yourselves with. I haven't seen such a motley collection of mutants and malcontents since the Cantina sequence in Star Wars.

It wasn't Ron Paul who wrote that stuff. It was Greedo.

Oh, my apologies: Doctor Greedo.

And yeah: What is up with him keeping Don Black's money? Seems to me that, given the racist shit that appeared in his newsletter previously, he's actively courting these people and wishes not to offend them. Gotta dance with the girl that brung ya, after all.

To be fair, several Reason writers express "disappointment" or the like in Paul, and Paul's typical non-response response. And a call for him to answer "questions" about the newsletters.

But most of it is just self-serving nonsense. Reason's folks are likely embarrassed, and I can't blame them for feeling so. They were taken in hook, line and sinker by an oddball hick secessionist and confirmed Jew-hater who brought precious exposure to their quixotic quest to legalize drugs. One can forgive them, perhaps, for the initial attempts to make excuses.

Not just for Ron Paul. But for themselves and their own poor judgment.

But one can forgive them for only so long. This absurd nonsense that Ron Paul didn't approve of his own newsletters, even as he concedes he wrote much of them (just not the embarrassingly racist or anti-semitic parts, mind you!), and thus should be held blameless is embarrassing and simple apologetics for a bitter, twisted old Jew-hatin' reject from the John Birch Society.

You want to keep "the movement" alive? Fine. But reject and renounce Ron Paul himself and stop making absurd claims about his innocence.

Or else continue standing with your venomous, anti-American, conspiracy-mongering Jew-hating twat of "leader." And be counted as one of his disciples, the same sort of disciples who made sure to read The Ron Paul Survival Report back in its dubious heyday, in order to be alerted as to when "the animals" might be moving in on them.

At some point credulity becomes complicity.

PS: Stop telling me that "Doctor Paul" shows his high regard for blacks by seeking to legalize crack.

You know, I've heard some people throw their hands up about the War on Drugs too and say, resignedly, "Oh, what do I care, let them kill themselves if they want."

And when they said "them," they weren't thinking of nice white kids. They weren't thinking of helping blacks. They were thinking of "Let the blacks kill themselves off if they like, what does it have to do with my life?"

I don't mean to say that those who oppose drug laws do so out of antipathy for the most battered victims of drug addiction. But there are a lot of people who do. And based on Ron Paul's, ahem, "ghostwritten" opinions about blacks, I'm thinking he came to his position by a similar route.

Every one of "Doctor Paul's" often-absurd policy positions can be explained by the very same hatreds that the malcontent militiamen and Klansmen feel. And it's no coincidence -- no coincidence I assure you -- that such groups support Paul and also think his policies are pretty cool.

And Tucker Carlson? Your claim that Ron Paul is such a straight-from-the-lip truth-teller that he would simply announce his hatred of Jews and blacks and gays if he harbored such hatred is fucking stupid, you bow-tied buffoon. Even David Duke attempts to spin his racism and anti-semitism not as hatred but simply as "pride in the accomplishments and culture of European-Americans." Even the Ku Klux Klan itself has attempted a similar recasting of its belief.

You stupid twats. You're all so taken with yourselves with being so clever and contrarian and free-thinking you just can't admit you were punked by a half-crazy old bigot of a crank, forever nattering on about Trilateral Commissions and international bankers and Bildersbergers and the CFR and AIPAC and other front-groups for the International Zionist Conspiracy.

Oh, And As For The Convenient Scapegoat of Lew Rockwell... Errr, if Lew Rockwell is such a rotten guy with a head full of bad chemicals, why are he and Ron -- sorry, Doctor -- Paul so tight?

"Oh, I didn't write those nasty passages, of course. It was merely one of my closest and oldest political allies and personal friends. Had nothing at all to do with me, you see."

Posted by: Ace at 03:02 PM | Comments (128)
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Well, I don't think so. But Dinesh D'Souza likes the argument that the earth must have had an intelligent Designer, as it just happens to be almost perfectly suited to host life. Can't be luck, he says, right?

This LiveScience article claims the earth is just about the right size, with tectonic plates of just the right thickness, to support -- okay, well, they say evolve -- complex life.

This Goldilocks argument doesn't impress me, for a rather simple reason. There are billions of planets out there that are entirely unsuited for life. Guess what? There is no life on such planets, and hence no curious life-forms there marveling at how perfectly-suited their planet is for life.

And, of course, silicon-based life forms can only live on a planet that supports silicon-based life. So silicon-based aliens are going to marvel, naturally, at how wonderfully designed their planet seems to be to support silicon-based life.

A carbon based life form might not fare so well there, but Dinesh D'Souza wouldn't notice, as he happens to live on a planet favoring carbon. And oxygen metabolism. And creatuers made up 70% of water. And etc.

Dinesh D'Souza is right -- it's not luck. It is also, however, not necessarily design, either. It's something like inevitability.

Posted by: Ace at 02:04 PM | Comments (190)
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Well. They're just swell guys, aren't they?

Russian anti-intrusion systems worked gangbusters in Syria, I hear.

Heckuva job, Pootie.

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (31)
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I always thought this was relatively obvious but, lest evangelicals be blamed or feel picked upon, might as well note it explictly:

A little more good news, per Jonathan Garthwaite: Huck actually split the evangelical vote evenly last night with McCain and Romney. You canÂ’t call one sample a trend but if he tanks with evangelicals in Michigan, too, it might be evidence that the constant attacks from talk radio are starting to soften his religious base.

Huck's never had all of the evangelicals. Not even close. What he has is a sizable fraction of them, which allows him to win or at least place strongly in a very fractured field. 35% of evangelicals is enough to win in a state with a lot of evangelicals if the rest of the voters are dividing up, somewhat evenly, between three or four candidates.

Why do 35-50% of evangelicals support this shameless, shady, dishonest doofus? Some actually just like his liberal economics -- not everyone is in the GOP for free trade and low taxes, after all. Some don't care about economics or law and order or the war at all and just want a pro-life candidate. Nothing wrong with that, per se, though they really ought to consider that a guy who gets less than 40% of the national vote on election day doesn't get to appoint Supreme Court justices. (Unless, of course, he's Bill Clinton.) Some respond, as many voters do, to charisma and likability, and were his pandering and hypocrisy not so transparent to me, I might say he's got both of those in spades. And some are, as a lot of people are, more or less uninformed dopes who think he's funny and "seems like a good guy" and who their pastor had a good word for. And who are so unworldly and naive as to believe him when he says he doesn't want to run negative ads but then, goshdarnit, keeps seeming to run negative ads. But they're not negative, really -- look, he's smiling. He looks like a happy little cherub.

It's not that evangelicals are a homogeneous bloc. It's that there are enough of them in the party who like Huck for a variety reasons -- a general leftwingish bent on all issues except social issues, single-issue motivation, and lack of the recommended daily dose of skepticism and cynicism -- that he can get enough of them to be a contender when the rest of dividing more or less evenly among a bevy of non-goofball candidates.

So it's not evangelicals to blame for the Huckster. Rather it's just bad circumstances, a race in which there are four plausible candidates each with a legitimate shot of winning. And as of yet the field isn't winnowing. Even Giuliani, who seems to be tanking badly, has no reason to exit the election before he can try for the big prizes of California, New York, and New Jersey.

It's the Culture, Stupid: Slublog's excellent post last week about Huckabee's hold on the culture warriors.

I'm kind of split between being a CW and an S-P so I don't really care. (I'm mocking O'Reilly here, guys. "S-P." It's like he's reduced politics to high-school texting codes, kthnxbai.)

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (32)
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Event had to be moved from an office building to an airplane hangar.

There is a large police presence at the hangar. Media is being asked to preset for a security screening, and officials from the Transportation Security Administration are on site preparing for screening. This has not occurred at any previous Giuliani event.

No other details yet but the campaign says they will release more information later.

UPDATE: Nothing to see here, move along.

The decision to move the event was purely precautionary.

"It was non-credible and not specifically directed at any one person," said the official.

The threat was described as "something like a bomb threat."

Posted by: DrewM. at 12:31 PM | Comments (16)
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[UPDATE 2: Dear morons, you know how to email, don't you?

Some folks have contacted me, but others have just announced their intent to show in the comment thread. That's nice, but I'm not going to post the actual location here. If you want to go -- and it's still this Saturday evening in Manhattan -- or are even considering going, please email me at the address below. I need to get info to you, plus a rough head count would be nice. Don't make me have to start sending angry hobos to track you down.]

But any of the NYC-area morons around for a mini-gathering next weekend?

I don't know if King Moron is available (or even alive), but I figured I should post this first.

UPDATE: OK, I'm still not sure what (or who) the turnout's going to be, but the event will happen. Saturday night (1/12), probably in Manhattan. Email me at blog dot someone at gmail dot com for details, if you're interested.

[Ace:] Is It Just Me... Or should a post berating morons for not being able to successfully compose an email actually contain an email address to which to send it?

UPDATE 3: It's just you, Ace. Other people can look at the line RIGHT ABOVE WHERE YOU POSTED.

[Ace]: I really have to start reading this stupid fucking blog.

Sometimes people ask me what the blog is about. "I'm not sure," I tell them. "People tell me it's about tits and vodka. And hatred."

YARVIN! [Gabe]

A Little Assistance [Slublog] - Might want to avoid these places.

UPDATE (Jack M.): I don't have anything to add. Everybody else was updating, though, and I didn't want to feel left out. You know...a social outcast. Like Dave in Texas.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE [Dave in Texas]: Suckit, JackM. Also I beat Bart and Slublog in the football pool.

I have no life.

Posted by: Open Blog at 12:22 PM | Comments (47)
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