Tapping my fingers at this National Journal horse race rankings of the Democratic Presidential candidates, a conventional wisdom barometer, I have to wonder something.  Aside from the non-candidate Al Gore, who the list-makers inserted last time out and have flushed downward after amazingly continuing to hint that he is not running, and aside from Mike Gravel — slated permanently at the bottom (and they do include his photograph), who is maintained with no arrow…

All the arrows are up.

Considering the way a horse race usually works, how is this possible?  Jockeying for positions, one candidate generally rises at the expense of another candidate falling.  Not always, but it is a decent rule.  But not here — everyone is moving up.  For this campaign, there does seem to be a stratified positioning — Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, Biden, Kucinich, Gravel as it were last time out and as it will be next time out, meaning everyone is keeping pace.  I would quibble, believing that Biden’s constituency largely doesn’t exist in actuality and ends up being the Beltway, and Kucinich — whatever else one may say — has a small loyal following, but I can just accept the National Journal as engaging in a Beltway Bias which props up Biden.  None of this matters, as the two campaigns are going nowhere, so to argure that is to argure the number of angels that can dance on the tip of a pencil.

The announcement of Elizabeth Edwards’s relapsed cancer pierced John Edwards back into the spot-light, meaning that, yes, in a perverse and deeply cynical sense the cancer is a political asset for the John Edwards campaign.  I understand that the best way to deal with cancer is to continue your life as normal and continue with your ambitions, which for the Edwards means running for the presidency, hence the campaign continues.

Absent the cancer, the media had well effectively narrowed their coverage of Too Early Campaign 2008 to Clinton and Obama, resulting in the continual feeling of malaise that we are being set up, whehter we like it or not, for a Clinton — Obama ticket.  Nice to see you, Bill Richardson, but you really don’t exist.  (Unless, I guess, the localities take care of the national press, and Edwards gets Iowa, maybe Obama gets New Hampshire, and Richardson gets Nevada?  A very different result than the winner of Iowa basically being crowned and running the table.)

The malaise floats in with the statement from the uncovered creator of the 1984 Apple ad spoof — pro-Obama anti- Hillary.  He who placed Hillary Clinton as Big Brother speaking before drones will vote for Hillary Clinton should she be the nominee.  Game set and matched, it is a matter of partisan pride that everyone must and will and shall rally around the nominee and stuff away their queasiness in a fevered pitch of volunteering to make sure that candidate wins the presidency.  I saw a Winsor McCay spot illustration (an editorial cartoon that didn’t make any political point) from 1904 which had two prominent Republicans — I don’t remember who — one one side stumping on behalf of Theodore Roosevelt.  On the other side, two prominent Democrats were stumping for the Democratic candidate — well – nigh forgotten conservative judge Alton Parker.  The two Democrats were Grover Cleveland and William Jennings Bryan — examples of the schizophrenia of the Democratic Party, somewhere on opposite sides on anything and everything.  Bryan could easily dismiss Parker away upon his election defeat.

It’s like that.

So, I guess Hillary Clinton’s campaign is “up”, as is Barack Obama’s, John Edwards’s, Bill Richardson’s, for whatever reason Chris Dodd’s and Joseph Biden’s, and apparently for rather slap-dash reason Dennis Kucinich’s.  Maybe the up arrow, needing something to be pushing up against, is in relation to the Republican list?

Eugene Victor Coats  [Pretty clearly not his real name, though I suppose it may be one of the more official aliases.]
B. 11/24/24
D.11/24/07  [Pretty clearly not the date of death, but we can assume he passed away a few days ago.]
[i]11/1/06:   As we go thru this life we wonder at times if what we have done amounts to the cost of the print on the paper we record the event on. My life has been episodic; seems I bump along for awhile doing mundane things in an everyday sort of way, then suddenly, out of the blue, something triggers me in such a way I have to get up and do SOMETHING about whatever is bothering me. Understand, something bothering me is not necessarily anything that would cause the average “man on the street” to even pause during his morning coffee break, but a thing that has suddenly reached such a state in my mental process that it requires “ACTION”.

That Action sometimes occasions breaking out that Nasty little bag of “Whipass” I seem to have been born with, and which was honed to a fine edge in another side of my work I shall not discuss at this time. Never-the-less, a means came to mind and I set out to find others who were bothered by the same problem; Pat Robertson was running for PRESIDENT. Infama!

Kletus and I were on a very close relationship in those days and he put me in touch with a Group that had just formed for the purpose of “investigating” that very condition, a group of people that included several CIA Types, a few Time Magazine Reporters, an ex-Marine Corps Commander(!), ordinary Agents who were between assignments, and other lesser knowns such as myself, you get the picture, I’m sure.

In a Konklave of these assorted individuals it was decided that Old Pat had to be brought up to and be forced to face his past “transgressions”, in a word, those who had, or those who knew someone who had, GOOD information should pass it along to those who knew how and where it could do the most good. Two things this brand of Asshole cannot stand is Ridicule, the other is showing the World how he acted when he thought no one was looking. The Classic Case of the Tele-evangelista caught with his pants unzipped. A sorry sight indeed.

Seems his father, a Godly Man in his own right, had used HEAVY influence to get his son, Prick tho he be, a Commission in the Marine Corps, a place where one might achieve some semblence of Glory if he has the “Tough” and the “Git it On” attitude that Service Branch is so well known for having. With that in mind, I give you 2nd Lt Pat Robertson, posted to a shooting war in Korea, who became that true Glory Hound, a Supply Officer in a far rear Echelon position [a safe place in most instances]. The plot thickens.

His old Marine Corps Comrades, not to be outdone, had a few interesting character quirks to pass on, one of the larger and more noteworthy being the Brand New 2nd Lt’s inability to keep his hands off the young girls/women the Officers hired to do housekeeping duties and probably other things as well, upon those dark and stormy nights one sometimes found in Korea, or other occasians as the situation warrants. One of his One-time Comrades Of Old even had a Copy of the Man’s Service Record he was willing to contribute to the cause, imagine that! Did I say that most of his Old Comrades did NOT have a very good opinion of him? I should have done so.

Just when The Holy One was really getting up Steam, spending lots and lots of his Contributors money, beginning to get some attention in this world, there was speculation in some circles that he might Go Far in His Great Quest, certain Publications began to insinuate [only slightly, mind you] that this Great Man, this Paragon of Rectitude, this Mann chosen by God Himself to lead the USA out of its Troublesome Sins of Booze, Sex, Rock&Roll Music, and only Satan Himself knows what else, Might Be A Little Bit Less Than Perfect. Dare we Speculate on such a Scenario?

Then the Ship hit the Sand [read that as The Shit Hit The Fan]. Time Magazine did a Special Edition on Rev Robertson, former 2nd Lt, Marine Corps Hero and possible Man of Destiny. Outside commentary as well as Letters to the Editor burnt up the Typesetter’s rack, Backing and Forthing everything this Great Man had ever done, including a reprimand for his constant Grabass Sessions with the Little Korean Girls. This was the unkindest Kut of All; Tele-evangelista’s, especially those in Olden days, do not and cannot stand the light of day when they have been caught with their pants down. I am sorry to say, this did not seem to have any effect upon his Radio-TV Broadcasting which continued being that Great Glorious Money-Sucking Device it had developed into, but it did Torpedo all chance of his Mucking Up the Presidential Election in that year or any other Election in that year or any other year for that matter.

Looking back on my life I can give myself a pat on the back, figuratively, for having done a few worth while
things during that life, and some of them, this one I just described in particular, a thing that was enjoyable almost beyond comprehension. I wish you all could have been there.[/i]

I post that, this being a slice of what appeared to have been a varied life of someone I don’t really know in the physical sense, but have communicated with much more than all but a handful of actual people I know in the real world really, over the Internet.  The source of much wisdom, he seemed to have made the most of his 83 years or thereabouts, developed a complicated and not entirely predictable state of viewing the world, and I guess that is all one can ask for.

I find myself haunted by the same feeling of repetitive dejavu all over again for the untold numberedth of times of a sense that history is repeating itself in the same manner of an endless time-loop that it had sometime in the past.

To paraphrase Yoga Berra.

The latest Bush Administration argument — we must stop the Democrats from playing political gamesmanship here, and pull this investigation into the realm of non-accusations where it belongs — takes a lot of galls.  Galls which Bill Clinton, or for that matter, George Herbert Walker Bush would not have dared tried to throw out — meaning this will either be distinctive to this particular bizarre administration, will be a disturbing precedent that Hillary Clinton may enjoy, or will skip the Democratic Presidents somehow and move to the upcoming Jeb Bush Administration.

The line in the sand which Bush has drawn — Harriet Miers and Karl Rove will meet privately with Patrick Leahy’s Judicial Oversight Committee and — um — chat and clear the air?  in a non-judgemental manner overflowing with goodwill and hugs and kisses, I suppose?  Under no oath, and with no public transcripts.  What is strange is that this is not the most absurd manistation of this abrasive policy.  That title goes to his closed door meeting before the 9/11 Commission, where he insisted not only he not be under oath or with no public transcript, but he must be co-interviewed with Dick Cheney.  When asked why this was needed and what the public was supposed to think of such an arrangement, Bush responded with a complete punting of any clue of the implicationss.  It was gist for the mill for the 9/11 Truth Insided Job Loose Change mill, as well as the Martian Observer mill.

There is a notable change in the attitude of the party chairs of the Judicial Committee — Democratic Patrick Leahy and Republican Arlen Specter.  Specter is showing a stunning fidelity to President Bush’s cause, stunning for his quasi-“maverick” or “Moderate Republican” labels (the Conservative Movement says “Liberal Republican”, and the National Review front-covered him as “the Worst Republican Senator”).  But he appeared to basically assuage away any independence he may have had when he kissed the rings of the Republican base (outraged by his rise to the seat) in order to capture this Committee Chair after the 2004 election.
The difference between Specter and Leahy — perhaps merely a difference of partisan loyalty — is an equally compelling though less stark example of the shift of committee chair control following the 2006 mid-term elections as that of the Environmental Committee — which switched Majority and Minority roles between Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Democratic Barbara Boxer of California.  This is on display with the current hearings on Global Warming.  Quoting James Inhofe:

“I have been called — my kids are all aware of this — dumb, crazy man, science abuser, Holocaust denier, villian of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthral, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun.  And I can just tell you that I wear some of these titles proudly.”

It is a good thing he included the qualifier “some of these”, or we would know for certainty that he is proud of being called the particulars of … Holocaust denier, dumb, crazy man, science abuser, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthral, Genghis Kan, Attila the Hun, or — I suppose the only reasonable “some” on the list he might be able to “wear proudly” (unless you have a thing for Genghis Kan, Attila the Hun, or are pro-unadulterated war-mongering) “villian of the month”.

The editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian drew a cartoon published today, with the “Democratic View” of how the Attorney Firing Scandal should run — with Leahy in front of Rove and Miers testifying on a platform with nooses around their neck — and the “Republican View” — tv talk show host Patrick Leahy playing the part of Jay Leno with Miers and Rove on the couch chit-chatting innocuously.  I found it a strangely balanced and ultimately meaningless cartoon, which is to say it resolves the motives of the two parties in this little firing line, but suggests a “thesis/ antithesis / synthesis” of two “extremes” that “somewhere in the sensible center, lies the answer” — an answer I cannot possibly imagine existing nor see any reason to find.  In a previous state of power — under a merely technical Democratic Senator Majority in the whisp of a post-9/11 politically unassailable president, or of a Republican Majority welded and merged with the Administrative perogatives — he could play this role of “chit chat” investigation with impunity.  Now we see that whatever cynicism some of us (all of us?) hole of the two party-system, the election matter some.  A certain amount of bullshit is shifted aside and dumped, and from there we commence whatever fight we are waging.

 “I’m the first Latino — we checked this — to run for president,” [Bill Richardson] said.

Benjamin Fernandez, a California financial consultant, ran in the Republican presidential primary in 1980, saying he was the first.

Fernandez campaigned in New Mexico in 1979 and 1980 when Richardson was running an unsuccessful campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr. in the 1st Congressional District.  All three were on New Mexico primary election ballots in 1980.

Fernandez ran again in 1984 — when Richardson was running for a second term in the 3rd Congressional District — but Fernandez wasn’t on the New Mexico ballot.  Fernandez got stomped both times, but his story was remarkable and his
candidacy was written about in the Journal more than three dozen times and in The New York Times and Time magazine.

Born in a boxcar in Kansas to Mexican immigrants who were farmworkers, Fernandez picked sugar beets as a child before going on to college and becoming a millionaire.  Fernandez got close to 1 million votes nationally, enough to send three
delegates to the Republican nominating convention in 1980. He died in 2000.

The Richardson camp brushed off the mistake on Tuesday.  “The campaign was looking at the Democratic side of things,” campaign communications director Pahl Shipley said. “But it’s also clear that the governor is the first serious Latino candidate.”

Lujan, the former congressman from New Mexico, helped Fernandez found the National Republican Hispanic Assembly and remembered his presidential campaigns.  “He was serious about running,” Lujan said. “He was in New Hampshire and Iowa, I know.”

He said Fernandez liked to explain that he became a Republican because he heard they were rich and he wanted to be rich.  In 1980, Fernandez was in a crowded primary field. He raised $180,000 and campaigned in 18 primaries, including Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and New Mexico.

The always-genial Lujan said Richardson, a Democrat, should get a pass for forgetting a fellow Hispanic’s history-making campaigns.  “There’s no reason for him to have known that,” said Lujan, a Hispanic who served 20 years in Congress and was secretary of the interior under President George H.W. Bush.
……………………….

So, what makes Richardson — seeminly the fourth most likely Democrat to be nominated in 2008 — more serious than Fernandez — probably about the same for the Republicans in 1984?  I’m … just wondering.

I hold in my hand a 1974 republication of a book published in the 1870s, which was a “well-selling book” of some fame, entitled Satan in Society. Basically it boils down to an anti-sex book. I can not tell what the anonymous author, “A Physician”, decrees the most evil act which Satan is casting out over our fair nation, descending us into a state of moral turpitude. “Masculine women” and “feminine men” raise his ire — the “masculine women” being in abundance in the Women’s Rights Movement.  Prostitution gets a curt three pages, pithy and concise — only Christianity can save them.  Abortion is called the Great Sin of the 19th Century, which it may or may not be but somehow pales in rhetorical flourish to what the anonymous physician has to say, for two relatively long chapters divided by gender, about …
Viewing the world over, this shameful and criminal act is the most frequent, as well as the most fatal, of all vices.  In our country, however, it is second in frequency — though, not surely, in importance — only to the crime of libertinism.  It is encountered in all ages, from the infant in the cradle to the old man groaning upon his pallet.  But is is from the age of 14 to 20 that its ravages are most frequent and most deplorable.  Nothing but a sense of inexorable duty, in the hope of effecting a radical reform by awakening the alarm of parents and teachers to the enormous frequency and horrible consequences of this revolting crime, could induce the author to enter upon the sickening revelation.
And thus he parades through the victims of males onanism.  I never would have known.  I think they were hired as cast members several decades later for “Refer Madness”.  And then … the final WARNING to society:
The author has had patients from many boarding schools and has learned facts which convince him that in all of them masturbation is practiced to a fearful and most injurious extent.  In saying all, he means literally ALL without a single exception.  If there exist a single exception, it must be a boarding school of angels.

It was the case in every boarding school in which we ourself [SIC] were sent as a boy, and in our whole professional career we have never lost an opportunity of satisfying ourself upon the question of its continued existence. [Really?  Satisfying?] In conversation with professors and teachers of both sexes, from the university to the village school, these horrible apprehensions have been more than confirmed.  Let those who read these pages reflect upon the numberless instances, which must have come within the observation of all medical or lay observers, of youths who stood high in their classes, and ranked quite as intellectual prodigies up to or a little beyond the age of puberty, say from 14 upward — who suddenly, without obvious cause, became stupid or dunces, or losing their vivacity, seemed to fail rapidly in intelligence, and to disappoint the high hopes which had been entertained of them.  99 percent of these examples are case in point.

And with that we can skip to the other gender, title “Female Masturbation”:

ALAS, that such a term is possible!  (I don’t see why it would be possible for males and not for females.  But, then again, the section that deals with sex where it belongs — on a conjugal couch in marriage — and mind you, there is no room for any sort of mutual self-love there — I’m just reporting what our anonymous highly respected physician says — seems to preclude much of a sexual appetite for the wife.  If it were otherwise, she would be a nymphomaniac, I suppose.)  O, that it were as infrequent as it is monstrous, and that no stern necessity compelled us to make the startling disclosures which this chapter must contain!  We beseech, in advance, that every young creature into whose hand this book may chance to fall, if she be yet pure and innocent, will at least pass over this chapter, that she may still believe in the general chastity of her sex; that she may not know the depths of degredation into which it is possible to fall.  The rest of us, creepy old men included and probably especially, I suppose can continue on and enjoy — er — no, not enjoy — but… become really, really stern in the knowledge of this most important of maladies inflicting the body politic.

The moral symptoms are similar to those of the opposite sex.  They are sadness or melancholy, solitude or indifferance, an aversion to legitimate pleasures (The authors appears to be a bit unsure what the “legitimate pleasures” are for girls, but in the chapter about boys he passes by an interest in sports.) and a host of other characteristics common to the two sexes.  The condition called “nymphomania” sometimes ensues, in which the most timid girl is trandformed into a termagant, and the most delicate modesty to a furious audacity which even the effrontery of prostitution does not approach.
I think “nymphomania” has always been a transparent ruse, a reflection more on those who would diagnose such a thing than on the “nymphomaniac”, but what do I know?  Anyway… in conclusion:

We could give facts almost without number in our own immediate experience, and in reported cases, to show the prevalence and destructive nature of this vice among girls in our own country, but we forbear; the subject is painful and revolting to contemplate. […] We remark, however, in conclusion, that it is not sufficient to use merely ordinary precautions of a judicious watchfulness; direct and skillful interrogation must be from to time employed; at least in every suspected case.  The subject should never be avoided through false delicacy, and such lessons should be impacted on the dreadful consequences of the habit, as shall effectually deter the perpetrators from persisting in it.
I don’t want to be near that conversation.  We are instructed that if the girl blushes upon this confrontation, it is defacto proof of this — not the Crime of the 19th Century but apparently the Crime of All Time.

I don’t think it is possible to read anything in this book except with a mental state of a 13 year old.  But that has to be about the only rational response to Anonymous Physician of the 19th century.  Maybe someone out there can provide historical or sociological analysis examining such or such, but that seems just kind of superfluous.

I carried three signs intermittently, provoking reactions.  The first sign spurred outrage.  “Out of Iraq / Into Iran!”  Apparently people generally agreed with the first half of the slogan but generally disagreed with the second half of the slogan.  Upon conversation, I ended up agreeing that it was a stupid idea.

The second one seemed to incite a confusion masked with a chuckle, a chuckle hiding the confusion of thinking they should find it humourous, but being afraid to admit it didn’t make sense to them.  “Impeach Nixon”, which people decided was an obscure comment on our current president.

The third sign only received unadulterated confusion.  “US OUT OF CASCADIA NOW!”  Apparently we just aren’t ready for the concept.

Notably, to understand Albert Einstein’s referenced conclusions respecting the significance of the general accomplishments of the practice of modern science, from Kepler through Riemann: we must acknowledge the evidence that the principle of gravitation, as discovered by Kepler, is “invisible” to mere sense-perception: that, because it is, efficiently, as big as the universe, and thus, like every true universal physical principle, it supplies that universe with the quality of boundless finiteness as a whole, but is, also, therefore, in a manner of speaking, so large, that its efficient local expression is, apparently, ontologically infinitesimal.[11] This implication of Kepler’s discoveries is then made more efficiently comprehensible, by the explicitly anti-Euclidean, dynamic, physical hypergeometry of Bernhard Riemann, as this is to be contrasted with the silly, neo-Euclidean, mechanistic-statistical, mythical universe admired by the modern, empiricist dupes, who have followed the method of Descartes, including those such as Immanuel Kant et al.[12]
Got that? No?

It’s some brilliance or other by Lyn Marcus, as relayed by the Lyn Marcus abjunct on the “FACTNet” message board of anti-cult postings over here.

I think it may be, in a very tangeantal way, part of their new anti-Gore curriculum. Oh yes. The Lyn Marcus Youth Movement appears to be taking down their “Impeach Cheney” soap boxing to make way for some anti-Gore sloagneeering. And we have come full circle.

The following are the highlights of the EIR‘s more than 15 years of investigative reporting on the philosophy, political connections, and activities of Albert Gore, Jr. All of the following items are (will soon be) available in full on www.larouchepub.com. They represent the starting point for any one carrying out a thorough review of the pedigree and performance of the man now being touted as a ‘Global Warming’ superstar.

The problem is I don’t really know how long Al Gore is going to be at the forefront of the news, so I don’t know how much mileage one can get on picking apart Al Gore. Nonetheless, had Al Gore been prompted to the president in 2000, the LYM would have had no shortage of material to draw from:

“Gore’s New Book sets agenda for environmentalist dictatorships”, a review of Earth in the Balance, by Margaret Sexton (Vol. 19, no. 14, April 3, 1992)

“Al Gore and Adolf Hitler”, by Lyndon LaRouche. (Vol. 26, no. 2, Jan. 8, 1999)

“Prince Philip’s ‘Cat’s-paw’ Al Gore, Jr. Would Usher in a New Dark Age,” by Scott Thompson (Vol. 26, no. 4, Jan. 22, 1999)

… and on and on. Oh, the paths that might have been had it not been for a fluke of history.  The same but… it’s not Cheney — it’s GORE!