Two girls were arrested in McHenry County, Illinois last week for distributing flyers at their school that depicted a male classmate kissing another classmate and had the words “God Hates Fags” on the flyers. One of the girls at her arraignment was denied bail for her actions, and the other was effectively placed on house arrest.
read more | digg story
Anaheim prevailed 4-2 in the best-of-seven NHL Western Conference final. The Ducks will meet the Ottawa Senators in the Cup final, with Game 1 set for May 28 (CBC, 7:30 p.m. ET).
read more | digg story
Do not be deceived by Internet buzz.
I have been pleasantly amused by everything surrounding Ron Paul and, for the sake of completeness, Mike Gravel. There has been a lot of Internet press about these two, though Ron Paul seems to be the real darling (at least of digg).
As you may have noticed, I posted a Ron Paul video. Please do not construe this as an endorsement, but more that I thought the video was worth sharing. He -does- have good things to say and, more importantly, he says them with conviction. This, I believe, is what people find refreshing more than his actual message.
One of the points he makes is that he is not Libertarian, but that he is a “real” Republican. He makes a convincing argument, besides the issues about peace. The support of war or peace has not been, typically, an issue which divides “the parties.” Rather, it has always, always been power politics motivated. Support for the war waxes and wanes in the public and the parties, any party, try to use this to their advantage.
Ron Paul will not succeed. This is not an issue of liking him or not liking him (I haven’t heard enough to make a decision), but it’s whether or not he can succeed in the main stream and I simply do not believe he will be able to do that. While it IS refreshing to see some of the news outlets turn and say, “whaa?” I do not believe this sort of thing will be a momentum shift.
It will be interesting to see what the internet push will produce. There was a lot of buzz around Howard Dean in 2004 and look what happened. Though, I am going to make a very hindsight guess and say that most of those internet fair-weather fans probably did not reside in New Hampsire.
Success, though, may not be what is important. What do you really want from a candidate? Candor? Success (electability)? Someone who shuts up and let’s you make money? Someone who ties him/herself to a tree? Someone who believes in god?
People are disillusioned with politics for many reasons. I am certainly not one to speak to all of the reasons why. But I can take a guess at one: because a candidate/politicians opinion is based more on a public poll than a personal conviction. This is one of the reasons George W. Bush was re-elected–people see/saw him as a man with conviction. I am awfully tempted to make the simple argument that it is vital for politician to have conviction. It makes sense, right? Fight for what you believe in and get support from and for the people.
The problem with this argument, by itself, is that there is no quantification for the belief. By that reasoning, a blood-thirsty murderer should be a better choice as a candidate for President. (No quips, please.) So, I am not going to make the simple argument that conviction is everything. But, it’s damn important. More important, though, is that the people voting have conviction and, well, vote on that conviction.
If only it were that easy.
