A small but amusing series of questions about the two major candidates as posted on the blog of the Libertarian candidate.

It seems the Republicans might be stealing a page from the Libertarian playbook if this Drudge Report story is true. I still plan on voting Libertarian, but if Republicans are serious about this, and were able to pull it off, I think it would be great.

This is a pretty interesting article.

If the FCC had been in charge of overseeing the Internet, we’d likely be waiting for the Mosaic Web browser to receive preliminary approval from the Wireline Competition Bureau. Instead, the Internet has transformed from a research curiosity into a mainstay of the world’s economy–in less time than it took the FCC to approve the first cell phone licenses.

Embarassing though it may be, I watched the Libertarian national convention for no less than 3-4 hours on CSPAN, Sunday. There were 3 major contenders – Aaron Russo, Michael Badnarik, and Gary Nolan. (There were a few votes for Drew Carey also, incidentally).

The candidate who’s campaign manager stayed at my apartment a few months ago was Gary Nolan, so I was routing for him for the most part. After the first round of voting, it was extremely close. Russo had 258 delegate votes, Badnarik had 256, and I think Nolan was 10 or so behind Badnarik.

That’s the part where I left and went to Microcenter for an hour, and then missed the events that transpired before the second round of voting: Nolan conceeded the race, and encouraged his supporters to vote for Badnarik. When I returned, I saw Badnarik end up winning the race. Apparently he did very well in the debate the day before.

So, for those of you even moderately interested in the Libertarian party, a good way to help out would be to donate a few bucks to Badnarik. He must be a good guy – he’s a computer programmer after all.

Which political party has the hottest chicks? Well, my guess is unfortunately the Democrats, but the Libertarians have calendar out called the Ladies of Liberty.

The creator of the calendar, Rachel Mills, also has a blog.

This article from CBS News is pretty interesting.

With conservatives upset over the ballooning size of the federal government under a Republican White House and Congress – and a portion of the political right having opposed the war in Iraq from the start or else dismayed at how it’s being handled – the Libertarian nominee, who will be on the ballot in 49 states, may do for Democrats in 2004 what Nader did for Republicans in 2000.

This article presents a pretty interesting possibility for what Nader might do this year (New York Times – free registration required). When we vote, we aren’t actually voting for candidates directly – we are voting for the electors our candidate has selected. Since Nader is a 3rd party, and has a (generally negative) reputation as a spoiler, he might select his electors to be a mix of both people who support him exclusively AND people who support Kerry. That way, when the voters go to the voting booth, they could pick Nader and know that they’re still, in a way giving some of their votes to Kerry.

This plan is consistent with the original understanding of the founders. When they created the Electoral College, they did not anticipate the rise of the party system; they expected voters to select community leaders who would make their own judgments when casting their ballots for the presidency. In designating Kerry electors rather than insisting on his own slate, Mr. Nader would be giving new meaning to this tradition that refused to view electors as simply vehicles of a candidate’s will. In effect, he would be enabling his supporters to rank their choices: Mr. Nader first, Mr. Kerry second.

Pretty cool stuff. I still think something like Instant Runoff Voting would be a better option (it’s definitely more easy to explain, and therefore more easy for voters to understand). However, this tactic did give me a better appreciation for the electoral college.

As Coon Dog predicted, Martha Stewart was found guilty on all counts.

“Maybe it’s a victory for the little guys who lose money in the market because of these kinds of transactions,” said juror Chappell Hartridge.

Now, unless I’m misunderstanding something, that’s one of the dumbest quotes I’ve read in some time. Explain to me how Martha Stewart having sold her stock cost a bunch of “little guys” lots of money? When the news actually came out that Imclone didn’t get approval for their cancer drug, wasn’t that when all the little guys lost their money? Would they have lost less money if Martha hadn’t sold?

It sounds to me like typical bitterness towards rich people. “Why did she get to sell and the little guy didn’t?” “Why does she have a million dollars and I don’t?” Seems to me this whole trial is a waste of time. I’m not wholly convinced that insider trading is an activity worth making illegal. I’ve heard that it is in fact a legal activity in Japanese markets.

So, a year ago I posted my thoughts on the war in Iraq – whether it’s justified or unjustified. The bottom line conclusion is that the only case in which I felt war was justified is if Iraq was a threat to us. Period.

Knowing what we know now, not having found significant weapons of mass destruction it becomes difficult to conclude that Iraq was a threat, and therefore that war was justified. Of course, I guess this issue is not over yet. There are still searches and investigations as to whether they exist, and certainly people regardless of party had at one time believed they existed. I supposed one could argue it doesn’t matter whether or not we thought they existed, or who thought that they existed, only that we today see no proof of the fact.

Looking back over the last 2-3 years, my question is this: if you were president, what would you have done?

Not too long after 9/11 a firestorm of theories came out about Bush knowing about what was going to happen. How was he supposed to have known? Intelligence. The US supposedly had intelligence that should have tipped us off to the 9-11 attack so we could do something to prevent it.

Now what’s the biggest thing Bush is being attacked on for the war in Iraq? Intelligence again. This time rather than being criticized for ignoring his intelligence, he’s being criticized for using it.

So this is the dilemma I have. Intelligence appears not to be an exact science. It is not 100% reliable. So what do we do with it? If it’s not reliable, and we can’t act on unreliable information, then it’s not producing information that’s actionable. If it’s not producing information that’s actionable, then isn’t it worthless? Can it be made better? Does anyone really think the intelligence is any better under one administration versus another? One bloated bureaucracy to the next?

As a sidebar, I really think the Democrat-Republican role reversal is interesting in this case. When Clinton was president, the Democrats were big fans of humanitarian military efforts. Republicans groaned at the spending. Now here we are with Iraq, and the strongest arguments for the war Republicans currently have are humanitarian arguments. We freed them, we stopped the killing, etc. Republicans are actually using these arguments. Democrats have taken the opposite position and complain about the spending, with apparently less of an interest in the humanitarian aspect. The two parties never cease to amaze…

Due to the grassroots effort mentioned a few days ago, Gary Nolan is starting to get some press.