A psalm to comfort the non-mormon/non-christian

After seeing the rise of Mike Huckabee, and wading through Mitt Romney's speech, which basically declares agnostics and atheists and members of other faiths (like Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc) as un-american sinners doomed to hell, I got a little worried about my status in the afterlife and in this life if either of those two got elected.

Ed Skinner's interpretation of the Bible came to my rescue. From Romans 2:13-16:

13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. 15They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them 16on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

- New Revised Standard Version (The New Oxford Annotated Bible)

From Ed:

I've seen individuals and families around the world, good people and bad, good parents and bad and, through their similarities and their differences, I've learned things about myself, about others. And after a lot of chewing on the ideas, talking with others and lots and lots of reading about God and about life, about why we are here, animate and with the ability to think, choose and do, I'm convinced of a couple of things.


1. Life is Holy.
2. It is a gift.
3. We are granted Free Will.


Some take that Free Will and go in one direction. We are, indeed, permitted to waste our lives, to destroy ourselves and to poison future generations, even to exterminate all life on our planet. It is permitted.

But that is not what is hoped.

Instead, I am utterly convinced that God hopes we will cherish life, encourage it, embellish it.

Life is to be lived, and enjoyed, and in ways that promote it.

But we do have to choose to make it that way.

Labels: election 2008, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney

  ¶ 7:18 PM 1 comments

  Republican debate, msm framing unbelievable

ABCNEWS declares Huckabee and Paul winners of today's debate

Yea, I thought. On the day all the major central banks had to pump massive cash into the system and two days after another major bank had to take 10b dollars in losses related to mortgage lending... someone in the press bothered to think that the credit crunch and housing collapse were real issues, bothering real people, and that some politicians had solutions....

Then I went and checked all the other news about the debate on news.google.com. As I write, that's 731 articles worth, in all the national papers.

I forced myself to read the top 20 articles above, and it's like there were only three people on stage, all in a beauty contest...

If Lew Rockwell's blog hadn't pointed at the abcnews article that "loved the focus on the national debt" I'd have missed hearing anything about what concerns me most.

All I can say is, watch the show for yourself. Or read the transcript. Decide for yourself. Don't waste your time reading 20 freaking articles written in the mainstream press, as I just did.

Or, if you just want to hear from Ron Paul, here's his excerpts. What's he saying that the rest of the MSM can't hear or publish?

Aside from this major quibble, the format was far too short per question, but many of the questions were good, and the time was allocated a bit more fairly to all the candidates than I've seen before in this election.

Labels: election 2008, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 4:41 PM 0 comments

  The Supply of candidate news vs demand

mitt romney

ron paul

hillary clinton

barack obama

mike huckabee

I wish I could mash up the issues of the day against these graphs. The rises of Huckabee and Obama in the polls are reflected in the upswing of queries for them, far more so than ratio of news articles for them would imply. And Mitt Romney is getting a lot of queries after his speech, but, as yet, no swing in news or polls is measured. Does this mean that news reporting is far less relevant or more elastic than many want us to think?

Labels: Barack Obama, election 2008, hillary clinton, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul

  ¶ 8:31 AM 0 comments

  Presidental politics and the LAMP stack

I was curious as to what software was powering the presidential campaigns this year, so I did a brief tour of the top websites with LWP's http HEAD command.

It's kind of neat that Romney's otherwise wealthy campaign is using Linux, and no wonder that Fred's technologically clueless one is using IIs, and perhaps I could draw an inference that Hillary's campaign is so uncool because it's not run on a Mac? (Why don't any of the campaigns use a Mac as a web server?) Obama's running on a Personal Web Server, whatever that is.

Democrats

www.hillaryclinton.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.barackobama.com Server: PWS/1.1.29
www.richardsonforpresident.com/ Server: Zope/(Zope 2.7.8-final, python 2.3.6, linux2) ZServer/1.1
www.dennis4president.comServer: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
johnedwards.com Server: Apache
joebiden.com Server: Zope/(Zope 2.7.8-final, python 2.3.5, linux2) ZServer/1.1

Republicans

www.mikehuckabee.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.mittromney.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
www.joinrudy08.com Server: Apache/2.2.4 (Unix) PHP/5.2.0
www.ronpaul2008.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
www.johnmccain.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.fred08.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

The final tally: Of the top 6 Republican campaigns, half use a redhat derived Linux, half use IIS. Of the top 6 Democratic campaigns, 1 uses IIS, another uses PWS (Microsoft I think), the other 4 use Linux, or at least, Apache.

I could draw two conclusions from this. Either: Open source is a clear win in the presidential arena for all candidates - or: there is a marked preference for Microsoft in the top-ranked-by-the MSM contenders.

Now, of all the campaigns running, Ron Paul's is the most interactive and untinged by broadcast mediathink. Rudy Guilani's web page has, first on the page, "watch our new ad", and "get your Rudy bumper sticker, only 9.95", while Paul's has a flash message that circulates between donate, supporter messages, discover and imagine, who is Ron Paul, and pointers to videos, and even a supporter spotlight.

Ron Paul's campaign and supporters are almost entirely powered by at least three parts of LAMP - Linux, Apache, and PHP. I can't easily determine from here what the database back ends are, but I would assume it's either postgres or mysql on that side, too.

www.ronpaul2008.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
www.teaparty07.com: Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.ronpaulblimp.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS)
www.ronpaulgraphs.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS)
www.ronpaulforums.com Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)

Now, if I wanted to be truly fair and journalistic and geeky this morning, I'd survey a few other candidate's supporters' websites, and talk about how google news, myspace and youtube and technorati actually work to bring you the news you are looking for, but I have a few other things to write, and some Blimp handlers to find so I'll leave this at this for now.

Labels: Barack Obama, election 2008, Fred Thompson, hillary clinton, joe biden, John Mccain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 6:56 AM 0 comments

  Too tired to go on tonight

As of 10:11PM, the Ron Paul campaign has got 3.55 million in donations for the day. Odds are good they won't crack 4m by midnight, but I expect by morning that barrier, too, will have been exceeded.

I have blasted the MSM a lot in this blog lately, and I can imagine a few ways that the spin will go down tonight and tomorow, but I'm too tired to write more tonight. I confess to chuckling a little about what the talking heads will say without writers to back them up... Before I sign off, though, I just wanted to point to this google trends graph of interest in the top candidates from netizens. You'll note the wide disparity between demand (internet queries) and supply (news stories).

Earlier this week, I deleted the flash player from my machine because I couldn't stand filtering television anymore.

In the course of events today it was sadly easy to forget the imposition of martial law in Pakistan, the mass arrests of judges, and chaos there.

In the back of my mind today, I kept wondering, what would Ron Paul have done differently, there? He may well inherit that whirlwind one day.

Good night, and good luck.

Labels: election 2008, hillary clinton, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 6:46 PM 0 comments

  Ron Paul doubles his money in 20 hours

To ease up on the increasingly overloaded ron paul graphs server... the stats for the Ron Paul fundraising today are now:

last updated: 11/05/07 08:16 PM EST
total raised today: $3,154,548
total at start of day: $3,115,107

A commenter on this blog has raised doubt about the validity of claiming that Romney's single day fundraising record was 3.1 million dollars, claiming it to be 6.5m.

I tried to explore the facts behind this early fundraiser of Romney's earlier today, but ran into a PR brick wall while googling for it, and no followup I could dig through. Definitely, from the tone of the news stories I read, I had good reason to discount the claims of 6.5m.

So, I find the Ron Paul campaign's claim of 3.1m dollars donated, and the remainder pledged, in that Romney fundraiser credible but not reliable. If anyone out there has a complete breakdown on the Jan 8th, 2007 fundraiser of Romney's, I'd love to see it and will correct my statements and blog accordingly.

But unless I hear otherwise on that, or my searches pay off... the Ron Paul campaign has obliterated Romney's record for dollars collected in a single day - with 3 1/2 hours left to go.

Labels: election 2008, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul

  ¶ 5:18 PM 1 comments

  3 million dollars by 7:31PM for Ron Paul

The Ron Paul Graphs website says it all:

last updated:	11/05/07 07:31 PM EST
total raised today:	$3,009,32

I'm not going to extrapolate this. I mean, over 350k was just raised in an hour and a half, and half the USA is still driving home from work. Ron Paul Graphs has slowed to a crawl. Technorati has 45535 posts relating to Ron Paul. ABC news, and Usa Today are running stories....

And the night is still young.

It is certain Mitt Romney's single-day Republican fundraising record will fall, and the Ron Paul campaign will more than double the money they have in the bank.

A great shout of American outrage has emanated from the internet. Will it make a difference?

Labels: election 2008, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul

  ¶ 4:26 PM 0 comments

  Ron Paul might break Mitt Romney's single day fundraising record?

This morning I predicted that Ron Paul wouldn't crack 2.4m . I was impressed at 1.5m, saw the noon dip, and didn't think the donations could possibly be sustainable as over half of the people signed up on the thisnovember5th website had probably donated already, and the truly eager had done so at midnight.

Well, as I write - at 6:00PM EST or so - Ron Paul's campaign has collected an astounding 2.66m dollars for the day - and the flood of donations has only slacked off to 10AM levels over the dinner hour. It is - remotely - possible - for Ron Paul's campaign to actually beat Mitt Romney's record - the best ever single day fundraising for a Republican - not with PAC or corporate money - but with the donations of actual, live, possibly normal people.

Yet, in the MSM, as I write, the big story (110 hits on google news) is that a comedian has decided to end his run for the White House.

The fundraising story is getting a little traction. Just now, the Toast published its Paul + Pro Wrestler
story, and the Pimes focused on Guy Fawkes.

(In the Advise and Consent series of novels, Allen Drury started referring to those two publications as Pimes and Toast. Can't help my sarcasm today)

I'll repeat myself...

Ron Paul might actually beat Mitt Romney's record today - not with PAC or corporate money - but with the donations of over 21,000 actual, live, motivated and possibly normal people.

Sure wish the Pimes and Toast would talk to some of them about this. All their names are published...

While I'm noting data points, I recall Ron Paul being at about 11,000 references on Technorati a few days ago. He's now at over 45,000.

Labels: election 2008, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul

  ¶ 2:02 PM 4 comments

  Ron Paul on course for 2m+ today

With a half day total in excess of 1.5 million dollars - well beyond of what Ron Paul has done in his best week prior, donors per hour appears to have peaked. Odds are the total won't crack 2.4m unless the evening news picks up the story. Still, a very impressive showing.

Update: At roughly 1:30PM Ron Paul cracked 2m for the day and donors per hour has not fallen off very much from its peak earlier in the morning. A 3m dollar day is looking possible, which would be truly historic.

Some are cheerleading on for the best single day fundraising total in history, but that appears unlikely. Example #1: John Kerry got 3m in one day, in June 2004 - admittedly much later in his campaign than Ron Paul is now. So I went looking for who got the most early money, ever, and it looks to be Mitt Romney.

A few days after Mitt Romney left office to campaign full time for the presidency, his campaign raised 6.5m in a single day, although it is very unclear if that was actual cash raised or merely pledges, and what proportion of the funds came from whom. (I am still digging for the facts here - can anyone figure out his actual donations from his own money and the hype?)

Update: According to an alert sent out a few minutes ago by the Ron Paul campaign, Romney took in 3.1m in cash donations on Jan 8th, 2008. I'm assuming we're both talking about the same fundraiser....

What's interesting to me is how much that fundraiser of Romney's must have cost. $300,000 was one estimate, but I think that's low. He used sales software ("ComMitt") specifically developed for the campaign. He rented out 30000+ sq feet of space, built "pods" and an enormous set of big screen displays, bussed in 400 supporters, supplied them with laptops, and then turned them loose on their Christmas card lists. All just a few days after leaving office.

I keep wondering what Paul could do if the campaign started using old fashioned flashy car salesman methods like that? It wouldn't feel right, though.

I'd be surprised if this whole November 5th thing cost the campaign more than 20k - Ron Paul and his supporters know how to stretch a dollar.

Labels: election 2008, fundraising, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul

  ¶ 8:08 AM 4 comments

  Getting confrontational, remaining deadly serious about debt

Ordinarily I'm a quiet, unassuming guy. Really. My current outbursts are caused purely by a lack of surf to take out my aggressions on. I prefer to work together with people on a common quest for understanding.

I just asked a simple question of the right, in their own forum, redstate, About deficit spending.

And just to keep matters evenhanded, I'll ask the same question of the left, as soon as I find a suitable forum.

I look forward to any good explanations offered, because, frankly, I haven't a clear idea of why deficit spending is preferable to higher taxes.

Sure wish I could get my other questions answered by anyone in the race.

Labels: democrats, hillary clinton, Mitt Romney, national debt, republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 10:30 PM 0 comments

  Fox News debate results

I thought McCain did well by campaigning on his record. He got a standing ovation, showing some of his old fire, for his zinger about why he missed woodstock - "I was tied up at the time".

Giulliani got in the most "real-folks" sort of commentary, talking about being a yankees fan and things like that. He's a very good demagogue with a common touch no-one else present has.

Mitt Romney also campaigned on his record... saying that we can do everything the democrats want done better, faster, and cheaper, basically. I didn't care for most of what he had to say.

Several third tier candidates invoked the constitution and what the business of the federal government was, a welcome change from previous debates. They all kind of blended together for me, however.

And Ron Paul? He came in a distant 4th. He evidently didn't clearly hear his first question, and didn't answer it directly, and every other question he turned into a statement about how reducing our commitments abroad would allow us to pay for better social programs at home. He got thrown a softball question about how and why he had refused medicare payments and the associated paperwork and despite that perfect chance for a homily story that could touch hearts - he turned that question, too, into a foreign policy question. I would have liked him to have answered his questions more directly. He stumbled over the question of a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage, but pulled himself together at the end:

"This should be a religious matter. All voluntary associations, whether they're economic or social, should be protected by the law. But to amend the Constitution is totally unnecessary to define something that's already in the dictionary. We do know what marriage is about," Paul said.

Guilliani said that marriage is also a civil matter and got a laugh by saying he'd performed 210 marriages in NY but wasn't sure if they were all between a man and a woman.

Mitt Romney said:

"The status of marriage, if it's allowed among the same sex individuals in one state is going to spread to the entire nation. And that's why it's important to have a national standard for marriage," he said. "My state's constitution was written by John Adams. It isn't there."

Mike Huckabee said:

"When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen, they said that we have certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that,"

I can't help but remember that Sam Adams and John Hancock were basically smugglers who would have been hung had the British caught them. And that they would have hung with the priesthood. And that I would have been glad to have hung with them all.

Giulliani got off a good zinger on Hillary Clinton:

"I've been very critical of her, but I want to tell her I agree with this one. Quote, Hillary Clinton, 'I have a million ideas; America cannot afford them all.' I'm not making it up. I am not making it up," Giuliani said to laughter. "No kidding Hillary — American can't afford you."

Fred Thompson, after being an unimpressive and slow starter all night, got in the last words of the night somehow. I just spent 5 minutes trying to recall what they were, then I flashed on that cialis ad I'd seen in the first segment, overlaid by the windows XP window. To close out the debate. .. Thompson said something about being the proud parent of his 4 year olds.

On the whole, as national debates go, it wasn't horrible. I think I'd rather have curled up with a hot woman, preferably one that believed in plural marriage, birth control, and voting with her feet. A good book would also have been preferable. I suppose I'm going to have to force myself to sit through more debates, lacking either of the above. Sure wish I could get some of my own questions answered.

Labels: debates, election 2008, fox news, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 7:17 PM 1 comments