He says he’ll still try to get delegates but Ron Paul will no longer actively campaign for the GOP Presidential nomination. Of course he never had a chance but that won’t stop the Paulites from saying otherwise.

This video says it better than 10,000 words could

There is nothing I can say about this video except 1. Be warned some of the context is not safe for work or younger ears 2. I can only assume (or hope) the speaker is mentally ill and thus deserving of sympathy But it is worth knowing people out there do say these kinds of things

Ok, get those tissues ready. Or if you prefer, start pretending something is in your eye.

Amazing how the GOP hard liners work at throwing opportunities away.

An interesting fact, in France there are 2.4 companies with less than 50 employees for every one with more than 50. And here is part of the reason why

Other TMV commentators have already discussed the fact that President Obama has announced his support for marriage equality. I thought I’d take a different tack on the subject, the issue of whether this was really the result of Obama being forced on the issue or part of a broader plan. I lean to the 2nd option. As Politico has pointed out, Obama expressed support for marriage equality as far back as his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate in 1996. Indeed I don’t think many of...

Update: AP and other networks are projecting that Amendment One has passed. With about 30% of the vote in the people of North Carolina seem to be voting in favor of prejudice. About 57% of voters are currently supporting legislation that would ban all legal recognition of any relationship other than male-female marriage.

One of the better members of the US Senate has been defeated in the GOP primary in Indiana. From what I can tell his defeat is partly attributable to the perception that he has lost touch with voters and a poorly run campaign, so I can accept that in many ways he blew it. At the same time I am deeply troubled by the campaign run against him, attacking him for working with President Obama. I didn’t like it when the left attacked Senator Lieberman for working across the aisle and I don’t...

It looks like they may be having elections in Greece again if they cannot manage to form a government. So far efforts to do so have failed and prospects are not good.

Patrick Chappatte, Le Temps, Switzerland In France the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy to become the first Socialist President of France since 1995. This will give him the power to name the new Prime Minister of France, though no clear front runner has yet emerged. But the victory for the left may not be as much as they had hoped. For one thing there is a debate as to just how liberal Hollande is, or how liberally he will govern. In addition, the French...

For those who get it, CNN International is covering the elections in Europe and it is interesting to see many of the same issues we are dealing with here being discussed there. In Greece for example the economy is in a shambles and the basics of math dictate that there have to be spending cuts, in many cases very severe ones. We don’t quite face that problem here yet but if we do not get our financial house in order we likely will face the issue in the future. And like here, some of the voters...

When I was young I used to read a series of books called “The People’s Alamanac” and “The Book Of Lists”. Each book offered hundreds, if not thousands of interesting factoids. These books came to mind when I grabbed another from my shelves this week. Have you ever had a moment where you wondered about the things that are part of our everyday lives ? Why do forks have 4 prongs, why not 5 or 3 ? Why do we say that we ‘make our bed’ ? What ever happened to that Watson guy who helped invent...

It’s not surprising that we are all burned out on political ads and as a prior post notes, the rhetoric in the 1800′s was even worse. But still I can’t believe some of the commercials out there “Democrat Elmer Fudd wants to give Viagra to child molesters and then put them in charge of day care centers” “Republican Bugs Bunny wants to take your grandma’s social security away so Donald Trump can buy gold plated toilet seats” Obviously the above is a tad...

Agree with him or not it is a bold move in a state not known for being gay friendly. And everyone should oppose the bill as an attack on free speech and intrusion of state government into local affairs

This according to a new book about campaigns and fundraisers.

With the recent announcement that Disney will be bringing The Voices Of Liberty to Disneyland in California I thought I’d post a couple videos of these truly amazing performers. Enjoy

A look at the scandal from a rather unique point of view.

Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has been found guilty of war crimes by an international court. This is the first such conviction since the trials following World War 2. The conviction stems from his involvement in a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, a war in which as many as 50 thousand people died and many more were injured and abused. The trial, which took place in the Netherlands, began in 2007 and was given international support from authorites at the UN, in Sierra Leone and from human...

Now that we’ve all (hopefully) sent our returns in to the government the question in the back of our minds is how long to save those tax records. Of course there is nothing wrong with saving documents for as long as you want, but I thought I’d offer a little primer. The main reason you would intend to save records is, of course, on the very slight chance that the government might come and ask us some questions, raising that dreaded word.. audit. On the state level the rules vary from state to...