Romney's VP? Paul Ryan

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's official:

NORFOLK, Va. – Mitt Romney unveiled Saturday morning Representative Paul Ryan as his choice for running mate, a bold move that comes at the end of an intense selection process and is likely to shake up a presidential race out of the summer doldrums.

...

Ryan’s selection is bound to animate a conservative base that has largely been skeptical of Romney, even as he has repeatedly sought to make inroads. As the architect of the Republican budget blueprint that cuts spending and recasts how Medicare and Medicaid are delivered, Ryan has developed a reputation as a policy wonk and a rising star within his party.

I was feeling pretty confident that Pawlenty was going to be the guy, and I'm glad he's not. I was hoping for Jindal, but not so much because I don't like Paul Ryan - I still feel like he'd be more powerful in a Republican Congress. Regardless, he provides some significant conservative credentials to the Romney ticket, is going to get the base pretty excited. Here are two of my favorite Ryan moments for the initiated:

EDIT: A friend posted this New Yorker profile of Ryan, to give you a good idea as to what he's like.

It isn't just about guns.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I am a supporter of the 2nd amendment. However, there are those in this country who only pretend to be in support of the 2nd amendment. People like the National Rifle Association, whose strong rifle-bias precludes their understanding from allowing the freedom to own bombs. I fully support the right to own bombs. Bombs are quite useful.

For instance, I wish to wear a bomb vest wherever I go. This would allow me to protect myself from criminals and/or the government when needed. I would only use the bomb vest responsibly and lawfully, in response to direct, serious threats to my body or person, or to those around me. Or, perhaps, I could put a bomb in my wife's purse, so if someone wants to take it, I can protect us with a switch and a timer.

In any event, I find that people have a critical lack of creative thinking, and the gun debates have seriously degraded our vision when it comes to self-defense. Guns are perhaps the least useful tool in an arsenal of defense. They are relatively difficult to use, limited in application, and rely too heavily upon the nerves and training of its operator. I feel that we can revolutionize personal defense with a strong line of explosive devices sold at discount prices.

As the old saying goes, "A society where everyone is armed with bomb vests is a polite society."

Palestinian leader goes to Auschwitz, lays wreath, gets lambasted by Hamas:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0811/Palestinian-comments-on-Holocaust-underscore-internal-divides

In today's news on the Israel-Palestine front, a Palestinian leader went to Auschwitz, and laid a wreath at the grave of Holocaust victims. This is part of a tendency by the leaders of the PLO/Fatah wing of Palestinian nationalism these days to not only recognize the Holocaust but to extend further recognition to the past that actually has come to influence Israel as it sees itself. However I am not surprised at two tragic aspects of this story. First and foremost, Hamas chose the opportunity to engage in gratuitous dickery. This is to be expected from that movement, which only rose in the first place because Fatah's leaders were *that* corrupt to a point where *those guys* became preferable. O.o

The other was that Israelis objected to saying that the Holocaust included non-Jews. News flash, it really did include them. Russians, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, they all really did get swallowed up in Hitler's murder machine. The attempts by some Jewish historians to make the Holocaust into an all-Jewish event is a gross distortion of history. The Holocaust was just the most well-planned and lethal part of a far wider slate of murder that in its brevity and scale has no equivalent in human history. Denying it happened is utterly wrong, claiming Hitler only killed 6 million Jews is a-historical. The Nazis actually killed 22 million, the great bulk of their murders in the span between the Wannsee Conference and VE Day, but with large-scale massacres preceding the Wannsee Conference as well, such as Babi Yar. There were, however, no instances of Nazis targeting other groups like say, what happened to the Hungarian Jews. Which is why there is a reason to differentiate between the one set of genocidal slaughters and the other.

Your thoughts?

Driving into the USA

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Driving my Smart Car into the USA isn't a big deal. It's like driving any other car into the USA. Yes I still need my passport. And yes my car can go highway speeds and even a little above the speed limit.

This surprises many Americans in Montana. I'm often greeted by inquisitive Americans with the same questions.

"so is that run on gas or electricity?"

And so I explain "no, it's diesel"

( This does not compute. The jaw drops and they just don't get it. In their minds diesel is for big trucks, long haul trucks, the mothers of trucks... not some rinky dink little toy of a car no bigger then a motorcycle. )

The Kurdish dream resurrected

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Red, white, and green. With a sun in the middle. This is the Kurdish flag, and it is proudly flying in many towns in North Syria. The Syrian government troops have withdrawn from the region to concentrate on the battles in the key cities Damascus and Aleppo in the south. But the vacuum was not filled with troops from the Free Syrian Army, the armed opposition fighting Assad. Instead, a deal was made between the Syrian opposition and the Kurdish government in autonomous North Iraq. At least for the duration of the conflict. Although the Syrian opposition so far chooses to ignore or outright reject the Kurdish aspirations for self-determination (in Syria), at a political level.

( Read more... )