Monday, October 25, 2004

Liberty's Candidate: "While most polls, interviews, discussions, and debates only focus on two presendential candidates (although two more candidates were present outside the St. Louis presidential debate until they got arrested), there is a third party candidate that seems to be capturing a significant percentage of votes on many polls that his name appears on. He is not Green. He is Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik, and compiled below are some real life responses he has given in interviews that may give you perspective into his person and policies that you can't get from his website." (Via Kuro5hin.org.) A good collection of quotes from various interviews covering Badnarik's positions on various issues. Kuro5hin.org is a surprising place for such a collection, and it's amusing to see the irate reactions from the mostly socialist denizens in the comments. 2:55:32 PM    comment () From Talking Points Memo: Looking over various reporting on Tora Bora from the winter and spring of 2001/2002, it seems clear that most major news outlets ran stories which flatly contradict what the Bush campaign is now saying on the subject (see this earlier post for more details.) I'd be curious whether, in reporting the Bush campaign's current denials about what happened at Tora Bora, any major news outlet has made reference to their own earlier reporting which makes it clear that, as nearly as such things can be known, what the president is saying is simply not true. I doubt they have. This isn't the first time the mainstream media has repeated Fed lies as the truth even when it contradicts their own web site's archived covererage of what really happened. Consider, for example, the lie about Saddam throwing out weapons inspectors. 1:37:07 PM    comment () # Manuel Miles, aka Kapt Kanada at The Libertarian Enterprise - The Need for Manners - an entertaining rant on manners and the difference between manners and tact. [tle] I once received an email from a reader who wished to inform me that I was an opinionated idiot. I wrote him back to say that he could bother to begin his epistle with a greeting if he wished to have a reply from me. To my surprise, he apologised in his subsequent, properly written email letter, and we entered into a brief but informative correspondence. Neither man changed his views, perhaps, but we were better able to berate one another once the suitable format was established. [End the War on Freedom] The article as a whole is rambling and semi-coherent, but he does make an excellent point: Well, it obviously isn't tact that I'm concerned about; tact is just another word for dishonesty and trickery. (These traits are combined in the word we borrowed from the French, ruse.) You see, one can have manners without having any tact at all. For example: on occasion, I mention the rather obvious fact that I am ugly. It isn't a character defect and, short of plastic surgery, there isn't much I can do about it. I've learned to live with it, and I have dated some remarkably good-looking women in spite of it, but it's a fact as plain as the huge, twisted nose on my face. I have a mug that frightens babies and horses. Yet, when I refer to this fact, most women will automatically and reflexively say, "Oh, no, you're not ugly at all." That is tactful, but it's bad manners. In fact, it's downright rude, because it's a lie that's as plain as, oh, say... the schnozz on my face. I have to shave this ugly mug every morning, and you think I don't know what I'm talking about? That's like saying that Bush and Kerry don't know how to tell lies--hell, they're professionals. And if ugliness were a profession, then Jamie Farr and I would be the chairmen of the association, and a portrait of Our Founder, Jimmy Durante, would hang on the clubhouse wall. It's insulting to contradict people when they comment on a subject in which they are expert. So, a tactful lie is bad manners, campers. You don't have to publicly agree with statements which embarrass you, but don't go on record with a damned lie, either. 1:19:47 PM    comment ()

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