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Ron Paul Spam Traced to Reactor Botnet
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? writes "Ars is reporting that the Ron Paul spam has been traced back to the Reactor botnet. According to the SecureWorks report, which originally identified the spammer, someone calling themselves nenastnyj was behind it and their botnet control server has been shut down. The Ron Paul campaign has previously denied any connection with this spam campaign."
I know many people think that Ron Paul doesn't have many real supporters and that it is mostly internet bots, but when Barack Obama visited Arizona State University to give a speech there were literally almost as many people with Ron Paul signs and t-shirts than Barack Obama even though Ron Paul wasn't even visiting that day. Make no mistake these supporters definitely are real. Unless of course all those people on campus are actually bots...
Creative Demolition
To me, it does not make sense that an election should last 4 years and require the kind of funding only mega-corporations can provide.
Why shouldn't it last 4 years - or longer - and cost a large fraction of the GNP. Civil wars do.
Republics are designed to model civil wars accurately enough that they can be "fought" to their conclusion without all that nasty dying, burning of crops and towns, and so on.
They do a good enough job of it (except for assasinations B-( ) that the US hasn't had to hold a full-scale civil war in well over a century (though there hace been a few small ones when the the elections were corrupted or a significant power group was disenfranchised and oppressed).
See the "Battle of Athens" for one example.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
That wasn't really a civil war. A civil war is two factions fighting for control of a country, not one part of a country splitting off and being re-conquered by the other.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That's interesting because Nenastnyj means something like "cloudy weather man" in Russian.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but assuming you're not, then have you ever heard of hyper-inflation? It happens -- usually when a government is heavily in debt and wishes to pay off its obligations by making lots of money. Not that that would ever happen here, after all, we're only something like 9 trillion in debt -- couch cushion change.
Yeah man. And charities? They're selling good vibrations.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Great. Another ignorant, fear-mongering post.
Ron Paul is Pro Liberty and Individual rights! How on earth can you get "against homosexual rights" from that?! He wants to get the federal government out of the marriage business entirely!
In regards to religion, please show me one article written by Dr. Paul http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_tst.htm
where he puts religion above the law and the Constitution.
He can bring the troops home.
Heck, Congress could theoretically do that in a week if they really REALLY wanted to. It would be like using a sledgehammer on the executive branch and military, but it could be done.
Just set the military budget to $0 and legislate no troops permitted in Iraq.
(I did say sledgehammer, the results wouldn't be pretty)
I am a World of Warcraft subscriber, and saw this junk spam posted on our forums today. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3270769489&sid=1
History has already show that idea to be retarded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallism
Unless he's proposing that the backing quantities for fiat, gold, and silver dollars be on floating rather than fixed ratios, but that would effectively make all of them fiat dollars.
Well, here's a fine column on that website you linked that should give you a hint. He also voted to ban adoptions by gay couples, and more. Look harder. Look closer at the laws he's sponsored in that post as well.
He's a liar and flip-flopper just like the rest of them.
Actually, you're the liar. Ron Paul's votes on this issue are consistent with his stated position: he votes against federal funding for abortion (since he votes against federal funding for anything not authorized by the constitution), and he votes to allow the states to set their own policy on the matter.
As for changing his position, the only issue I can name where Ron Paul has changed his stance is on the death penalty: he used to be in favor of it, but given the number of death row convicts who have been exonerated by DNA evidence, he no longer supports it. I don't have a problem with that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The e-mail excerpts are below:
Ron Paul isn't hijacking the party because he is closer to the 1996 Republican Party platform (and previous years) than any other Republican candidate. It was Bush and friends who hijacked the Republican Party in 2000. Here are some excerpts from the 1996 platform that are either missing in the 2000 platform, watered down, contradicted by other portions of the platform, or just ignored by Bush and ultimately removed in the 2004 platform:
This is the Republican Party that I grew up with and knew and loved. I stopped calling myself a Republican in 1999 because, among other reasons, Bush refused to commit to a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees.
Ron Paul worked to nominate Reagan over Ford in 1976. Ron Paul is the torchbearer of what Reagan stood for (although Reagan did not live up to his words).
After the Democratic Party became the Communist Party at the turn of the century and went on to dominate the first half of the century, the Republican Party responded by becoming the anti-Federalist Party after WWII. Ron Paul is trying to steer the Republican Party back toward those days of 1952-1996. That's getting back on track, not hijacking.
The main difference between Ron Paul and Reagan is foreign policy -- the Reagan Administration, in its fight against communism, armed the most radical elements of Afghanistan and created the Taliban, which of course ended up harboring Osama bin Laden. Ron Paul wishes for the U.S. to not repeat that mistake.
Ron Paul is the
Actually, you're the liar. Ron Paul's votes on this issue are consistent with his stated position: he votes against federal funding for abortion (since he votes against federal funding for anything not authorized by the constitution), and he votes to allow the states to set their own policy on the matter. Here's the summary: 12/06/2006 Abortion Pain Bill NV
05/25/2005 Overseas Military Facilities Abortion Amendment N
04/27/2005 Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act N
10/02/2003 Prohibit Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
06/04/2003 Prohibit Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
07/20/2000 Abortion Funding Amendment N
07/13/2000 Family Planning Assistance Funding amendment N
06/22/2000 Prison Abortion Funding Amendment N
05/18/2000 Oversea Military Abortions Amendment N
04/05/2000 Partial Birth Abortion Act Y
07/29/1999 Abortion Funding Amendment N
06/30/1999 Child Custody Protection Act N
06/09/1999 Overseas Military Abortion Amendment N
06/08/1999 Prohibition of Chemically Induced Abortion Amendment Y
10/08/1998 Contraceptive Amendment Y
08/06/1998 Abortion Funding Amendment N
07/23/1998 Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
07/15/1998 Child Custody Protection Act N
06/24/1998 Chemical Inducement of Abortion Amendment Y
05/20/1998 Abortion Private Funding Restoration Amendment N
10/08/1997 Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
09/04/1997 International Family Planning amendment Y
03/20/1997 Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
02/13/1997 Population Planning bill N Here's the summary:
Yes, some are bans against funding, which is consistent with his position, but I'm going to cull to show the ones that specifically go to my point: 10/02/2003 Prohibit Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
06/04/2003 Prohibit Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
04/05/2000 Partial Birth Abortion Act Y
07/23/1998 Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
10/08/1997 Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y
03/20/1997 Partial-Birth Abortion bill Y Note that during these votes, the Roe v. Wade decision was in effect as the supreme law of the land due to the Supreme Court, rendering all of these yes votes a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Yes, they later upheld the most recent vote, but he knew he wouldn't get the votes until Bush's stacking of the Supreme Court happened.
So then the question comes up -- when is it OK to violate the Constitution? Is the Constitution interpreted by people or by the Supreme Court?
Or the words of his campaign staff ...
"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action"
"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal"
"We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
"We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."
"Those who seek a pro-life culture must accept that we will never persuade all 300 million Americans to agree with us. A pro-life culture can be built only from the ground up, person by person. For too long we have viewed the battle as purely political, but no political victory can change a degraded society."
"The people of Texas do not need federal regulators determining our air standards."
"The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion."
When asked about presenting 'alternatives to evolution' in the classroom, Paul responded 'yes'.
To sum it up: Racist, anti-choice, Christian right, pro intelligent design in schools, against environmental regulation (at a federal level, granted)
Sounds like a good Republican to me.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
FWIW, Huckabee has a natural Evangelical audience that has been waiting for a candidate to get behind. couple that with having good oration skills and a good bit of charm, and Huckabee is getting literally millions of dollars in free exposure from the media about the new darling candidate. Bully for him, but once/if people manage to get past the charm, they'll notice some of the pretty significant skeletons in the closet.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
The issue is that when run by the FTC, as the vote authorized, the government is judging speech by its content. The FTC - the Federal Trade Commission - would be judging whether or not the speech is commercial, ie: trade oriented. And judging speech by its content is a first amendment violation.
The FCC, by contrast, would only be judging what type of communication it is. The FCC has a long history of banning certain types of communication: broadcasting on certain frequencies, or using too much power, etc. These don't violate the first amendment.
A formal legal opinion was expressed by Judge Edward Nottingham ( after the vote ): "There is no doubt that unwanted calls seeking charitable contributions are as invasive to the privacy of someone sitting down to dinner at home as unwanted calls from commercial telemarketers...The FTC has imposed a content-based limitation on what the consumer may ban from his home, thereby entangling the government in deciding what speech the consumer should hear." In summary, Ron Paul made his decision based on first amendment issues. It is not clear that the issues of privacy or property rights even made it onto his screen.
BTW, all of the above is from memory. I can't find anything on the net explaining why he voted against it.
PS: sorry about the 'crack' comment.
The survey you link to doesn't support your claim about 61% of Americans not caring about positions. The survey asked participants if they think of themselves as democrat, republican, or independent. If a party was given, they were asked if they are a strong or not very strong democrat/republican. If instead of naming a party, they said they were independent, they were asked if they lean towards a party. The most recent results are: 10% independent, 29% leaning independent, 28% weak partisan, 33% strong partisan.
What I take away from the data is that two thirds of the country doesn't identify strongly with either party. I don't think it says anything about voters being mindless. Even for the third of people who are strong democrats or republicans, it is still very possible that those people considered the issues and realized that they strongly agree with whichever party. Voter motivation is an interesting question, but it is not addressed in that survey.
I also disagree with your comments on the primary process. I don't have any research to back this up, but it seems like common sense to say that voters in primaries and caucuses tend to be some of the most politically savvy citizens. Your mindless voters that are getting reeled in don't go to caucuses and don't watch primary debates.
To sum up, I think that Americans take their votes seriously and are not mindless.
Greed wouldn't have mattered if they couldn't get the loans, and the loans wouldn't have even existed without the interest rate manipulations. When the federal funds rate is low it encourages people to take out loans and do more risky investing. All that money tries to find a home somewhere, and it causes a bubble. It's one of the most predictable aspects of the modern economy.
Blaming the financial problems of the past few years on greed is stupid; it's not as if greed just started showing up in people recently.
Ultimately there is just one magical attribute which gold possesses that a fiat currency does not...
Scarcity.
It's this scarcity which prevents inflation. Without the scarcity of something like gold, the politicians will always be able to simply print another... well, we're now into the trillions. How soon will we have to use zillions? How many zeros is that?
Essentially the real problem is Fractional Reserve Banking. It's basically legalised counterfeiting... A Ponzi scheme of massive proportions. The switch to full reserve banking is needed to prevent inflation along with the gold standard or some other way of preventing the arbitrary creation of money and therefore the theft of a person's time and effort.
Those of you with a Libertarian bent can switch to a gold or other commodity based standard today. There are several Digital Gold Currencies which would insulate you against inflation.
Deleted
Part of the e-mail exchange that I did not include was about the history of the two-party system.
The Federalist/Whig/Republican Party is the Party of Hamilton and represents central government and central banking. It is the antithesis of freedom. I call it the fascist party.
The Democratic Party was the Party of Jefferson and represented anti-Federalism and libertarianism. It got seduced by Communism at the turn of the century.
Thus, starting around 1900, the choice was between fascism and communism.
After WWII, the Republicans adopted a marketing strategy. To counter communism, they put on the cloak of the old Democratic Party, libertarianism/anti-Federalism, while secretly still being fascist/Federalist. It worked -- I was seduced, at least until 1998 when a lot of information started pouring onto the Internet. Even Ron Paul was seduced, as he campaigned for Reagan in 1976.
In 2000, the Republican Party started throwing off the cloak, and returned to naked power/fascism/Federalism.
A side note I forgot to mention -- the Democratic Party, which became the Communism Party around 1900, became the Party of Death around 1970.
In addition to being seduced by the Republican cloak of libertarianism, Ron Paul was also pro-life, so those two facts together made the Republican Party a better fit for him. After his failed bid for the presidency in 1988 as a Libertarian Party candidate, he realized he needed to run under one of the two major parties, and stuck with the Republican Party into which he was seduced in the 1970's.
In the presidential debates this year, Ron Paul keeps repeating how Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Bush claimed they were anti-war. Ron Paul is trying to tap into what Republican voters thought they were voting for in the past.