Today's crazy candidate is Minnesota's own Rob Hahn
Despite his mezmerizing, hypnotic eyes and robotic serial-killer grin, Rob's positions really don't seem crazy at all. here's a sampling from his website:
Tax Reform
Provide tax incentives to businesses that hire new employees, reduce the capital gains tax to encourage more investment in start-up companies at a time banks aren’t lending much money and consider raising income tax on the “über rich.”
Riverboat Gambling
Iowa, Illinois and Indiana all profit fromriverboat gambling, and we should do the same. Up and down the Mississippi River and elsewhere, this could generate new revenue ($400-600 million a year), create jobs and promote tourism.
Family Law Reform
Joint Physical Custody – sharedparenting time defined as greater than 45% for both parents- should be the legal presumption. Children have the right to have shared time with BOTH parents.
Legalize Marijuana
For medicinal purposes, absolutely. Maybe for other forms of use. Loads of potential tax revenue from legalizing all marijuana, and some would argue the war on marijuana has been lost.
Same Sex Marriages
Yes. This is a human and civil rights issue, not a religious issue. Legalize them or get out of the marriage business and just issue union licenses to everyone.
I think if I lived in Minnesota, I might vote for this guy. But unfortunately, he lost out in the race for the Independant Party nomination. And his response was to put out this video:
What is it with people named "Savage?" Apparently this Terry Savage is setting out to prove she can be just as big a prick as Micheal Savage (nee Micheal Weiner, swear to God)
There is no 'free' lemonade
In giving drink away, girls ignore rules of economics -- and sum up what's wrong with U.S.
Last week, I was in a car with my brother and his fiancee, driving through their upscale neighborhood on a hot summer day. At the corner, we all noticed three little girls sitting at a homemade lemonade stand.
So the story starts out cute. But this is a member of the Savage Clan, so it's about to take an ugly turn.
We follow the same rules in our family, and one of them is: Always stop to buy lemonade from kids who are entrepreneurial enough to open up a little business.
Most people buy lemonade from cute kids because they're cute kids, not to reinforce some sort of politico-economic ideology, but then most people aren't Savages.
The three young girls -- under the watchful eye of a nanny, sitting on the grass with them -- explained that they had regular lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and small chocolate candy bars.
Then my brother asked how much each item cost.
"Oh, no," they replied in unison, "they're all free!"
Gee, that seems nice. SEEMS nice!
I sat in the back seat in shock. Free? My brother questioned them again: "But you have to charge something? What should I pay for a lemonade? I'm really thirsty!"
His fiancee smiled and commented, "Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving."
That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine.
"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things -- the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."
And right about now, the fiancee starts to tremble as she realizes what a carnival sideshow of a family she's marrying into.
I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.
"You must charge something for the lemonade," I explained. "That's the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs -- how much the lemonade costs, and the cups -- and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money."
"Brushing aside the fact that it was none of my goddamned business how these kids wanted to run their little stand," she did not add.
I was confident I had explained it clearly. Until my brother, breaking the tension, ordered a raspberry lemonade. As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?"
And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly.
No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy.
Yes, it's all your fault, little girls with free lemonade!
If we can't teach our kids the basics of running a lemonade stand, how can we ever teach Congress the basics of economics?
Because a large group of educated adults is pretty much the same as three little girls just trying to do something nice. And did it ever occur to you that maybe they weren't trying to run a business? maybe they weren't so stupid as to think that they were running a business and just didn't get why profits were down? Maybe they were just trying to do something nice. And yes, they're technically giving away their parents' stuff, but did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, the parents were in on it? That when the three little cherubs explained their idea to mom and dad, maybe the parents might have said "Yes, that's a great idea! Here, take these lemons and this bag of sugar and these cups and go brighten peoples day. I willingly contribute these items to your project and do not expect to turn a profit, for I wish to see my children act in the spirit of kindness and generosity, not naked capitalistic greed. And how I raise my children, and the values I choose to instill in them is certainly not the business of some asshole columnist who thinks that profit should be the only motive for anything people do ever. Also, the right of parents to raise their children in the manner they see fit used to be considered a conservative family value, but I guess this new crop of conservatives really have no values." Did it eber occur to you that they might have said that?
Also, there's a serious flaw in your logic. If you want to follow this Ayn Rand, greed is good, selfishness is a virtue philosophy, then you should only buy lemonade if you are thirsty. You shouldn't be buying lemonade in order to benefit someone else by reinforcing their spirit of entrepreneurialism. If you are following your own philosophy, you don't stop the car unless you want lemonade for yourself, either to slake your own thirst or to entertain your taste buds. And if the kids are suckers enough to give it away for free, you should not hesitate to take advantage. But that would be intellectually honest. And consistent. And those are not the marks of a true Savage.
Today's crazy candidate is North Carolina's Tim D'Annunzio.
Tim may at first seem like your typical God 'n' guns Carolina Conservative, but just wait 'till he gets to the part about the pyramid. Hang on, we'll get there.
Tim has a website for his campaign, but he also has a personal blog, which is where things get really entertaining / frightening. You can check it out here, but I'll tell you upfront, he mainly just reposts stuff from the Good Book.
Isaiah 24 1Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. 2And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. 3The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word.
And it goes on in that vein. And on and on. Seriously, I know preachers who don't quote this much Scripture. If you scroll all the way down to the end, it concludes:
Psalms 24
In the Name of
Jesus Christ My Lord Thank You My Father Posted by paraclete at 9:56 AM0 comments
That's the end. He ends with the heading Psalms 24, but for some reason, does not quote anything from Psalms 24. Just above that, he quotes 6 verses of Psalm 23, but Psalm 24? Well, I wouldn't want to get too preachy!
But he doesn't just crib from the Bible, he does talk about his personal life some. Like his grandson:
My first grandson was born on the 24th, Aidan Samoa D’Annunzio. (The name wasn’t intended to have any meaning and my son and daughter-in-law, who is Samoan, just thought it a nice name. It is.)
Yes, the child's mother is Samoan, but the name Samoa has no significance. Just a coincidence!
This whole brotherly love, Philadelphia, thing, what does it mean? I am my brother’s keeper, by choice. I have his back, Paraclete, the one who has your back.
The Constitution was written with this in mind. Its intent was a form of Government allowing liberty in all aspects of life but only properly operable when the people and the governing were bound by a higher law; a Devine [sic] law that showed all man the way and need for self governing.
Hey, you leave me outa this!
I want to point to several of the Federalist Papers. Federalist 62 will show the reliance on the logic of Natural Law, God's Law. Hamilton and Madison write that the same laws of human nature that govern a man also govern a government.
Yeah, the "laws of human nature?" Not really the same thing as God's law, or Andy Devine's law.
I am really worried for you that think this is some political or religious game with no consequences. Do you understand it is your soul that is at stake? Again, I say REPENT.
Vote for me or you'll burn in hell!
I talked to many people after the meeting and told them to be on the lookout for this SMEAR tactic in the stories these reporters filed. I read the print story on the Charlotte channel 36 web site the following day and they did exactly what I had described above. They not only did it with quotes from the meeting they also went to the letter of the 26th and printed the following.
“He also wrote, "Now do I believe that i am the messiah, you ask? I think the response proves what is true. I know that I have been anointed by God to be part of his plan to save the world."”
Is the above quote in context if she failed to print the following sentence?
I wrote: I found the plan. Now do I believe that I am the Messiah, you ask? I think the response proves what is true. I know that I have been Anointed by God to be part of His plan to save the world.
Oh, shit! Here we go!
Oh, and also, um he thinks that God is going to drop a giant pyramid on Greenland. No, really.
Looking at these passages [Rev. 21] literally, as I and as many young Christians might, it says that the earth has passed away, destroyed, and that a new earth comes down out of heaven from God, and verse 16 describes the size being 12000 furlongs, which converts to 1500 miles, and being as high as it is wide and deep, meaning it could be either a cube or a pyramid.
I then did some calculations and realized that if it was a cube the entire earth could be replicated inside it in layers spread quite a distance apart. Being a skydiver I also speculated that you could skydive inside this thing traveling from layer to layer. (And that is so farfetched, who would be crazy enough to think you could Skydive indoors?)
Next I looked at where it could be set on the earth with the least amount of disruption. I speculated the place could be Greenland. I saw it as an ark someday being sent as a rescue to transfer humanity from a dead planet.
Wait, there's more!
That takes me to the next accusation. I said that I found the Ark of the Covenant. I said it and this is the context.
When I was first born again I was exploring and examining everything. This exploration took me in several directions and areas. First I realized there is existing evidence of a Hebrew presence on this continent many thousands of years ago.
Wait, what?
I also realized that there was an archeological record of gold other metals [sic] being mined here during the same time. The other metal is what indicated exportation to some other place because the metals being mined were never used on this continent at that time.
So some Hebrews in Arizona were mining some unnamed metal that had no use here and were exporting it to "some other place?" Have I got that right?
I also saw other evidence that indicated the possibility some American Indians were of Hebrew decent. I knew that at the time of this early interaction the Ark of the Covenant had disappeared. There had been much speculation as to where it had been taken to protect it from enemies. I speculated that the Ark could have been brought to this Continent.
So you obviously have never seen a Native American or a Hebrew. And if Raiders of the Lost Ark taught us anything, it's that the Ark wasn't brought to North America until the 1940's.
Anyway, I guess the main point is this guy's freakin nuts!
And don't take my word for it, just look up his divorce records.
Those documents contain a psychiatric evaluation that says D'Annunzio was addicted to heroin as a teenager and, at age 16, cut both of his wrists with a broken bottle. They say he joined the Army at 15 by faking his age and rejoined at 19 by using a false name.
The documents also portray D'Annunzio as a "self-described religious zealot" who once called the U.S. government the antichrist. (source)
So someone in Louisiana had an idea to build a barricade of rocks out in the gulf to keep the oil from coming ashore, which seemed like it might be a good idea. Bobby Jindal thought that it sounded like a good idea. So far, Jindal and normal people are on the same page. That's good.
Then, the Army Corps of Engineers said that a rock barricade would not be a good idea:
Col. Alvin Lee, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers' New Orleans District, said the plan to barricade Pass Abel and Four Bayou Pass would do more harm than good by speeding water through other passes and possibly hastening the flow of oil into interior marshlands. (NOLA.com)
So, normal people said to themselves, "Dang, I thought that would have been a good idea. I guess I was wrong." But not Bobby Jindal. This is where Bobby diverges from the normal people. He had his office issue this statement:
"Nobody can convince anybody in Louisiana that rocks in the water are more dangerous to the coast, more dangerous to our Barataria Bay, than oil in the water," Jindal said. "That is simply ridiculous.
"The only people who believe that are the Washington bureaucrats who don't smell the oil, don't see the oil, don't touch the oil, don't feel this oil, don't understand what this oil is doing every day when it comes in our bay, comes in our coast."(NOLA.com)
See, once someone like Jindal decides that an idea seems right, there's no convincing them otherwise.
It doesn't matter that he is in disagreement with the freakin Army Corps of Engineers, he knows in his gut that he's right. And to him, his gut is more reliable than a bunch of people who have studied engineering and maybe know a thing or two about the situation. And when he says that he doesn't believe that "rocks in the water are more dangerous. . .than oil in the water," it's hard to tell if he really doesn't understand what the Corps is talking about or if he's just being disingenuous. (my money's on the latter)
Also, the Army Corps of Engineers is hardly a bunch of "Washington Bureaucrats."
They're the guys who build stuff like this:
But anyway, the problem with Jindal, and those who think like him, is they don't listen to people who know better. They distrust experts because the experts often challenge their preconceived ideas.
For example, let's say that you a re a person who thinks like a Jindal. And let's say it's late 2000 and you're getting ready to take over as president. You feel in your gut that Osama bin Laden is just some nut in a cave who can't possibly be a serious threat. So when Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke try to tell you that bin Laden and Al Queda will be the biggest threat during your administration, you just know that they're wrong. Because you have already decided that you know better. It seems like it should be true that Al Queda is not a big threat, just like it seems like it should be true that Sadam has WMD's. And Brownie sure seems like someone who would be doing a heck of a job. And if you have that kind of mindset, you're not going to let facts change your mind, and you're sure as hell not going to let some egghead expert tell you you're wrong.
Hey, you leave me outa this!
