Driving While Annoying

From Yahoo News: An 18 - year- old Republican from Minnesota is standing up for free speech, in his own mind anyway.

Corey Hauer has gotten repeated citations for a large sign he has posted over his back windshield that reads: Ron Paul Revolution. A city ordinance states that such decals cannot obstruct a driver's view.

But young Corey considers the citations an affront to his Constitutional rights, and the police force guilty of political oppression.

"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."

For his part, Sheriff Shaun LaDue said, "The political aspect of this doesn't enter into the equation at all. It's very clear in state statute that you cannot have anything that obstructs the driver's vision."

Besides being in violation of the law, Hauer showed disrespect toward the officer during each traffic stop, LaDue said. "He talks himself into a citation each time," LaDue said.

Hauer said he'll argue in court that the law violates his First Amendment right to free speech.

"To be honest, I'm probably not going to win, but I'm going to go down fighting," he said.

Frankenstein Villagers for Ron Paul

Fox News excluded Republican presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul (TX) from its New Hampshire debate. In response, his supporters chased talk show host Sean Hannity around New Hampshire.

No, they didn't have pitchforks or torches, but it seemed like they were chasing Frankenstein's monster. And they also managed to do the impossible: They made me feel kind of sorry for Sean Hannity.

Season's Greetings

Here's a pretty cool take on the Little Drummer Boy song for the holiday season.



And here's one that's not quite as cool based on Ron Paul.


Happy Holidays from SAM (I'm still waging the War on Christmas).

Paul on the Civil War

On Sunday's episode of Meet the Press, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul criticized Ronald Reagan, would not rule out third party run, and regretted the Civil War (known in some circles as "the Time of Unpleasantry").

"Six-hundred-thousand Americans died in the senseless Civil War... No, [Lincoln] should not have gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original tenet of the Republic."

"Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world," Paul continued, responding to the question if America would still have slavery had there not been the Civil War. "The way I'm proposing that it should have been done is do it like the British Empire did -- you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans?... I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach."

The Last True Conservative?

As you have probably gathered by now, I am no conservative. So, for me, there is a lot to like in the current field of Republican presidential candidates. Well, not really. But according to my calculations there is only true conservative on the stage at Republican debates.

Congressman Ron Paul has no shot at winning, but he's speaking truth to power and getting a lot of attention. And rightfully so. He is trying (in vain) to uphold traditional Republican ideals of being against war and government spending. In one exchange with front- runner Rudy Giuliani, Paul took the position that the US had to re-examine its policy of foreign involvement, and that over involvement in the middle east led to the 9/11 attack. Giuliani, right on cue, basically took the "they hate us cause we're free" position (to great applause), to which Paul suggested that Rudy listen to our enemies, or just read the 9/11 Report.

Anyway, even though I disagree with Ron Paul fundamentally, I could see supporting him just because he's so damn intellectually honest. He has made me rethink my policy against trusting people with two first names.

Check out his site here and there's a link for the Giuliani stuff here and here.

With that I'm off to Belgium for the weekend, so I won't be posting. I hope some of you all will though, enjoy!