Scott doesn’t sound like the man they all remembered.  In fact, he sounds like a left-wing blogger.  There is a reason for that:

I ghost-wrote the book.  Weren’t you wondering about those frequent typos?

Under the supervision of George Soros… not so coincidentally, the publisher also published one of his books, hm?

But we’re all bored with the thing now, to tell you the truth.

About a month ago I was walking to my bus-stop at just after 6 in the morning.  I looked down and saw two peculiar items.  One was a torn cover for the latest Lyndon Larouche pamphlet, something entitled “Doom” or something like that.  This was evidence that, yes indeed, the merry band of Larouchites had wandered in and through the city.  The other item was a glossy page of pornography showing one silicone enhanced woman licking the butt of another silicone enhanced woman.  I gather that the two items were once in the possession of the same person, and I wonder what the person who had them did with the two items, and which one amused him the most.

I suppose the DNC meeting this weekend will have a contigency of Larouchites leaching off the Hillary Clinton backing protesters.  Where this will get them, hard to say.  Compare the Homer Simpson quote:  “Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.”  WITH an item from here:  “I’m not able to truly understand what they want to do,” Irons said. “Their weird evangelism is off-putting to me.”

The story is the reoccuring story of the past 30 years, though nothing much comes of them, as with:

Irons described the behavior of LaRouchites when they come to the county meetings: “Mostly, they’re pretty quiet in meetings—then they’ll ask a non-sequitor question,” she said.

But non-sequitor to whom?  This is what they believe they are doing:

On the League of Women Voters’ website, LaRouchite candidate Ian Overton has posted a “position paper,” written by Amelia Robinson, of the Schiller Institute, one of the institutions associated with the LaRouche organization. The paper is more of a letter of advice to the six LaRouche candidates: Overton, Jon Stuart (incumbent), Ben Deniston, John Craig, Ramiro Bravo and Oyang Teng.In part, it says: “Though this is a seriously messed-up world, with Lyn’s and Helga’s [Lyndon and Helga LaRouche] wisdom and experience you can’t go wrong. You are building the foundation for bigger and better positions (be sure you keep your mind and body clean), so don’t stop keeping your eyes on the prize (President). Above all, keep your hand in the Hand (God’s) of the man who troubles the waters. To get to the top, be kind, patient, and loving, as well as truthful.”

Interesting that Helga is being shuffled into these position papers, no? 

Supposed Libertarian “Spoilers” for Democratic Senate candidates, link provided by this Montana based blogger because, spotted because it linked to me:

— U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who won his seat in 1998 when he beat John Ensign by a mere 428 votes, and with less than 48 percent of the vote. The Libertarian candidate, Michael Cloud, got 8,044 votes, and the Natural Law candidate won 2,749 votes.

— Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who won his Senate race in 2006 by beating Republican Conrad Burns by 3,562 votes. Stan Jones, the Libertarian candidate, won 10,377 votes.

It is a little tough to figure out the “Spoiler Effects”.  Libertarian voters are not to automatically transferrable to the Republican party, and a small number will actually gravitate toward a Democrat over a Republican over social issues or issues of divided government.  A certain statistical Noise from people simply casting a vote for someone on the ballot has to be taken into account, and a large number will not be voting for a major party.

I find it a bit curious that he saw fit to mention the Natural Law Party candidate in Nevada, who if not on the ballot I assume votes would drift either to the Libertarian or to the Democratic candidate Reid, which makes that one a little too close for comfort in tabulating the “Spoiler Effect”, just as I suggested I am a little uncomfortable in stating that Jones gave the election to Tester because one could certainly make a Libertarian case for Tester over Burns.   There I just like the idea that the Democratic Senate majority swung based on a man who turned his skin blue as a side-effect of preparing for Y3K.  As for Maria Cantwell, I might as well add, she came in off the coattails of one Ralph Nader, who brought in voters that covered her margin of victory — third party spoilers cancel themselves out.  I would have to know the exact percentage of Johnson’s victory over Thune to provide my estimate.

At least he didn’t suggest Webb came in because of a Libertarian spoiler — the Libertarian margin is way too close to Webb’s size of victory over Mr. Macaca Man.  (Besides which, remember those exit numbers?)

Yep.  Ron Paul won 24 percent of the vote in Idaho.

Yep.  Ron Paul.  Idaho.

Idaho.

I.  Da.  Ho.

That’s, um, the state you would expect Ron Paul to do well in.  The thing is that Ron Paul’s success correlates roughly to the amount of sagesbrush in an area — though, Bush has given a bad name to sagebrush with his frequent sagebrush removal at his “Texas Ranch” — which might be why the inhabitants of Sagebrush Land gravitate toward Ron Paul. 

So why isn’t someone setting up a “Paulville” there?

“First you say that Scott McClellan was lying, now you’re saying he’s telling the truth.  You can’t have it both ways.  Which is it?”

Looking around blogs, flicking past talk radio in brief snippets, I am absolutely astounded that there are people who say something like this.  If you say one thing at one time, and then later say something entirely different, it is not mutually exclusive to say that you are lying and then telling the truth… indeed, it is practically definitional that one is the truth and one is a lie.

The problem with Scott McClellan is a sort of obnoxiousness with his job, which is a job that is hard to take seriously to begin with — I am not sure how a news organization is supposed to handle the press gaggles — maybe send no reporters over there, plop a camera down, watch but mute the sound and study body language.

The one thing that Scott McClellan has just done is remind me that George W Bush is still president and still there.  That’s something I occasionally forget.

I apparently blinked in my sideways glance of the going ons in Ron Paul World. Somewhere in noticing the various storming of the gates of local and state Republican parties — welcome in some, summarily dismissed in others, in noting the easily overstated upper teen and onto 30 percent in Idaho vote getting in Republican primary, the #1 seller at Amazon.com, and how’s that blimp going?

I missed the latest and newest from Ron Paul World until it received some press in the New York Times. The latest from Ron Paul World is… the creation of Ron Paul World. Libertarian Communes, with all the contradictions inherent in that phrase. “Paulville”, and the first one is now being set up in the Texas panhandle — oddly enough, not in Ron Paul’s congressional district. The one thing I find amusing with Paulville is the line that “people can choose to live off the grid” if they so choose when moving there, off the grid of Paul-ville, which itself is suppose to be off the grid of the nation writ large, which means — there is setting up a big of Libertarian snobbery where the Truly Rugged can thump about and feel superior to those Welfare Cheats sucking off the teet of the Paulville government.

Ron Paul has an opportunity in the waiting here. If he wants to become a true cult figure, there his followers are — ready to be moved.

Over the weekend, I heard George W Bush thank the “Rolling Thunder” batch of bikers for standing up to Protesters who have been protesting the funerals of veterans.  Now, in this country when you hear “protesters” protesting veteran funerals, I picture a lot of people picturing — basically, flag-burning anti-war 60s style radical yippies.  For a bit of context, I feel the need to point out that the protesters “Rolling Thunder” stand in the way and of and offer a buffer area against are the followers and family members of Fred Phelps of “God Hates Fags” fame.

And the Libertarian Party has selected for their presidential candidate… former Republican Congress-critter Bob Barr.

I knew a young college Republican and ultra-conservative whose hero was Bob Barr.  I somehow doubt he is going to vote for Barr.  But, hopefully someone will.  The silly season of the Liberal blogosphere, which has run into the libertarian Reason-oids, have come up with this absurd premonition that Alaska might just go for Obama — which, will happen if, you know, Obama wins 45 states.  (The other two states the silly season is suggesting are Kansas – based on a stray poll — and Mississippi — based on an utter maxing out of the black vote to the tune of 100 percent vote for Obama off of 100 percent of eligible black voters voting — or so it would seem.) Part of the calculus for this absurdity is a chunk of vote for Bob Barr in these odd Libertarian “LEAVE ME ALONE!” out-posts.  We shall see, shan’t we?

I was hoping Stan Jones might barn-storm out as a Favorite son candidate of Montana.  If you scaffow at that, realize that Stan Jones is the most consequential Libertarian of the past decade, or more, for having swung the Senate to the Democrats — more electoral impact than anything Bob Barr has had during his Libertarian Party career.  Jon Tester won his election by a fraction of a percentage point, and Jones won three percent of the vote.  Even if you figure that Tester’s anti-Patriot Act and similar stances makes the margin a little too close for comfort in disrupting the odd calculus which, because I don’t want to think too much, has about half the Libertarian politician vote thrown to the Republican if s/he were absent and the other half just dissipating away as a no-vote, it is still enough to say with fair certaintude that Jones is responsible for Tester’s election.  Stan Jones is a perenial candidate who became known previously because he turned his skin blue because he digested collodial silver in 1999 in preparation for disruptions that the Y2K bug might have in the nation’s supply and transport of various antibiotics.  I suppose you can say that American political history is full of characters such as him.  Take the man who swung gave Alf Landon the position to be the Republican Presidential nominee in 1936 off the basis that he was just about the only Republican to win any election in 1934 — John Romulus Brinkley.  Landon owes his Kansas gubernatorial victories to this man’s votes — which otherwise would have gone to the Democratic candidate.  And for that, Landon could win Maine and Vermont.

In 1918, Dr. Brinkley began to perform operations which he claimed would restore male virility and fertility by implanting the glands of goats in his male patients at a cost of $750 per operation (about $7000 today, adjusted for inflation). He hired a press agent, advertised in newspapers, and used direct mail to promote his procedure to people who wrote asking for information. During his medical career, more than 16,000 people were victims of needless insertion of goat testicles, intended to restore energy and virility levels.

Following one of his crude operations, the body of a patient would typically absorb the goat gonads as foreign matter. The organs were never accepted as part of the body since they were simply placed into the human male testicle sac or the abdomen of women, near the ovaries. Unsurprisingly, in light of his questionable medical training (75% completion at a less-than-reputable medical school), frequency of operating while intoxicated, and less-than sterile operating environments, some patients suffered from infection, and an undetermined number died.

Hm.  Go Bob Barr, regardless.