benjamin

Alright miniature J-Labbers. There are a few things you need to know before occupying the post of senior editors on the newspaper staff. First and foremost, you shouldn’t care too much about newspaper. If, for some reason, you find yourself sacrificing your time and energy for the sake of newspaper, please take up some sort of hobby. I recommend following The Glasgow Celtic Football Club.

As a senior, you will want to get done with high school as quickly as possible and newspaper is an excellent way of making this happen. Newspaper is an easy class, provided you do what you are told, and is also a fun class. However, if the editor distances him- or herself from the staff, things become very uncomfortable and lame. Always accept input from other members of the staff. The primary reason for stories is that the author is not interested in what he or she has to write. So, editors, make them care.

Finally and most importantly, don’t ever date anyone on staff. Not that you should be dating at all in high school. Keep it in your fucking pants (no pun intended).

Libertarians are screwed. Sorry, folks. I can be pretty optimistic most of the time, but not now. I mean, Bob Barr? Pro-prohibition, anti-choice Bob Barr is the best person to represent the party in what could be a banner year? Not after Ron Paul. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after the Paul movement, it is that libertarians can’t rally around a leader who has baggage. The movement needs a fresh face, not someone who has been around government for a long time and has allied himself with other paries in the past (I’m looking at you, Mike Gravel). It isn’t that the Libertarian Party is the only means by which change can occur, or even a viable option at this point, but rather that the movement as a whole is desperately in need of some youth.

This starts with the college kids, and I’ll be working hard at IU for the next four years trying to accomplish just that, but it isn’t limited to the traditional “grab ‘em while they’re stoned” tactic of the left. The internet needs a solid libertarian rallying point. Whether this is one website or one group on an existing social network doesn’t matter. Someone needs to plot the trajectory of this movement before it loses steam, and that person certainly isn’t another old white guy.

Sorry to say it. I’m the last person to support the nonsensical MSM stance that image is more important than policy, but we need someone who looks different and thinks different (grammar goes out the window when a blogger is on a roll). Just look at the lp.org listing of the candidates for the presidential nomination. Wayne Allen Root leads the pack with a whopping $15,000, and the top three candidates are all white men.

I’m sorry, but people need someone to rally around that either looks young or not like a stereotypical conservative. Get some diversity in the party and start expecting real results, or leave. I, for one, am strongly contemplating the latter option.

Something amazing happened yesterday. I voted for Ron Paul. No, my vote doesn’t carry any more weight than anyone else’s. Yes, it’s mathematically impossible for Ron Paul to win. The fact that I and hundreds of thousands of others knew about Ron Paul, however, is amazing. Despite the best efforts of the media, you see, an amazing amount of people who were dedicated to the idea of limited government and constitutionally sound policy banded together to support a candidate that nobody thought would do anything this electoral season.

Yesterday I talked to my mom, an ardent Obama supporter, about how ludicrous mainstream media is. I claimed that media is obsessed with what candidates say and wear, but not what they will do when in office (which, we forget, is the only thing that matters). She asked me what I would do about the situation, and at the time I didn’t know. I do now. The Ron Paul Revolution represents an alternative to mainstream media control over the election process and its stranglehold on candidate identity.

Ron Paul volunteers, myself included, contributed well over $4 million in a single day, the largest single-day political donation in the history of the world. I am proud to share $100 of that record amount, and I was proud to cast my vote for Ron Paul yesterday. Keep in mind, after all, that this was entirely accomplished without the support of non-stop CNN and Fox News spam. If cable news ever mentioned Dr. Paul, it was in a mocking tone. That is, until he started saying things that no other candidate was bold enough to say and his supporters gave more money than ever before.

So, dear reader, I cry out to you. I plead and beg. “Turn off your televisions!” I shout, as loud as I can. Get online, read a book, do anything else. When you study the art of government policy instead of the art of getting elected, you find that the best candidates often haven’t been given a stamp of approval by the media. I, for instance, found that the only candidate willing to defend the constitution from debasement and our economy from inflation was a Congressman from Texas. I found that there are a lot of other people who think like me. Maybe there would be more of us if we had the Obama advantage of MTV approval and constant, drooling adoration from sycophant talking heads, but I wouldn’t want it that way. Maybe my candidate won’t win, but I feel just fine.

This could be big. Check out this Reason article on “Seasteading”, or homesteading at sea. Peter Thiel, renowned investor and entrepreneur, just sank quite a bit of money into the project. Seasteading looks like either:

a) A crazed attempt at legitimizing the survivalist movement.

or

b) An amazing new way of letting human beings experiment with various forms of government.

Albert Hofmann, the man who first synthesized Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, passed away this Tuesday of natural causes. Famous for his 1942 bike ride, Hofmann changed the counter-cultural landscape forever with the introduction of LSD, one of the most common hallucinogens in the drug culture. Though Hofmann had many differences with the 60’s movements that popularized his drug, he never abandoned it and worked for many years to get LSD legalized for psychiatric care and research.

After years of waiting, Swiss medical authorities have authorized tests of LSD on patients suffering from terminal cancer. Hofmann energetically approved of the research, the first of it’s kind in 35 years.

-Ubuntu 8.04 is just four days away from release. Check it out here.

-Darren McFadden is now predicted to go to the Raiders, in a situation echoing last year’s Adrian Peterson draft scenario. When will teams learn to take the best talent available? Is an OT really going to be the face of a resurgent franchise?

-Celtic F.C. beat Aberdeen 1:0 to top the Scottish Premier League standings with 77 points to Rangers’ 75. Looks like the bhoys can pull out another comeback season with a smooth finish to their relatively painless remaining schedule. League standings here.

-The drug war marches on as another April 20th passes by. Wikipedia article here.

Democrats can talk about their progressive past all they want, but anyone who understands the plight of inner-city America (and rural America, for that matter) remembers the disaster that was Bill Clinton’s increased funding for the “War On Drugs”.

There was an excellent article on reason about the lack of federal funding for law enforcement drug units, which has led to exorbitant crackdowns and invasions of privacy. If anything, the American taxpayer should expect more and more funding for the drug war, especially when funding for Iraq becomes unnecessary and Congress feels that unlimited budget burning a hole in its proverbial wallet.

Anyhow. Read the article.

I’ve not been keeping good on my promise, Concord. Here you are, then. The official CHS Rugby Video of the Week. 

This match was an absolute classic. Plenty of quality ball handling and running shown on both sides, and a close finish to top it off. The better side won, in my opinion, but it’s a great match to enjoy as a neutral as well. Check it out.

Welcome, folks. The final trimester is upon us. Just to update you, Barack Obama looks likely to win the election and Bill Buckley recently died. The GOP candidate is an economically liberal foreign policy neo-con eerily reminiscent of the recently departed Mr. Bush and Scotland is winless at the Six Nations.

Read the CATO Institute’s evaluation of the World Health Organization’s ranking of health care systems.

Bye ’til next time.