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It appears that Rawn Pawl* has a veritable freakshow of supporters. Not just Alex Jones and the 9/11 conspiratards, but neo-Nazis as well. And he doesn't seem too quick to denounce them.
*Alternate spelling used to throw off the fanatics, although I actually found a search for that spelling in my referrals the other day.
We have had very heavy rain since early this morning. Pensacola was hit by tornadoes about mid-morning and they caused extensive damage. There were some injuries but no deaths have been reported. You can read all about it in this story at the Pensacola News Journal website. I'm home from work now because my workplace shut down and let everybody go home early. The tornadoes hit several miles away from the neighborhood where I live and work. While we are going to continue to get some rain for a while, hopefully there will be no more tornadoes in the area.
Update (10/19/07): PNJ: Picking up the pieces
Neal Boortz from today's Nealz Nuze:
OH MY GOD! NEOCONS!I think that there is an organized campaign among [Rawn Pawl] supporters to send me emails slamming me for not supporting him. Why do I think it is organized? Because virtually every one of these emails contains the word "neocon" somewhere. Again ... I have NEVER received an email containing the word "neocon" that was worth reading. It just seems that anyone who uses that word really doesn't have much to say?
"Neocon" is just the new version of "fascist"...whoever uses the word is really just saying, "You're a big dumb doodyhead and I really disagree with you a lot."
I've been playing around with something that I'm ready to unveil. I created a tumblelog called Peace, Love, Flowers, Bullets.
I signed up at Tumblr some time ago, but didn't really do anything with it until recently. If I find a good quote, a funny or interesting video/photo or a good link and don't want to comment on it much, if at all, I will just post it there. I will also post brief intemperate outbursts there that I probably would not post here.
There aren't many themes available for tumblelogs right now, but I like the one I'm using currently. I would like to make one of my own eventually when I get a real computer again. As for the name...I always thought that would be a good name for a band or something and I've had it in my head for years. So, I decided to give my tumblelog that name and I bought the domain.
I'm still just experimenting with it right now. If I like it, I'll keep it and maybe put an RSS feed from it on the sidebar here as an additional mini-blog.
I need to give an update on some things since I went on hiatus.
First of all, my computer situation...I have decided to have a new computer built. The computer shop was unable to find a supplier of the kind of motherboard I needed for my old computer. (It is amazing how fast things become obsolete when it comes to computers.) They said they could try a few more places, but they couldn't say for sure if they would be able to find the part. So, instead of waiting another week to find out if the part could be found, I decided to let them just build me a new computer with the latest and greatest stuff. They are throwing in a few things for free to make up for what happened with the old computer. It will have XP Pro (not Vista -- they said that Vista is bad news, and I've heard nothing but bad things about it myself) and they will put my old hard drive in as a second hard drive, so that I can get my stuff off of it and use it as extra storage.
Regarding the Paxil-tapering situation...I will put that after the jump.
I had pretty much stayed the same in my dosage for a long time. I was taking one-eighth of a 10mg pill a day. I tried to get the liquid Paxil, and the pharmacy said it would be no problem, but when I brought the prescription home, it was pills, not liquid. I didn't feel like fussing with the pharmacy and couldn't divide the pills even smaller, so I stayed at the same dosage for a couple of months more. Then last week, I got an idea. I have some flavoring syrups that I got to use in soda and hot cocoa. I crushed up a pill into powder, added the powder to 16 teaspoons of the diet vanilla syrup and put it in a jar. I made my own liquid Paxil! I shake the solution up very well and take 1 tsp a day.
I'm doing alright on the lower dosage. I have had some episodes. I will get very depressed for a little while and have crying spells. I will also get suddenly very angry. But these episodes pass.
I'm not feeling the greatest, but I'm trying not to be so withdrawn and I'm trying to quit procrastinating things I need to do.
Kathy Shaidle has a new, even more provocative blog called Five Feet of Fury. While I don't always agree with Kathy, her blog is a must-read for me and I admire they way she can say so much with few words. For example, yesterday she posted about the demise of a pro-life organization due to the unwillingness of certain Protestants to work with Catholics towards a common goal. Kathy's commentary on this sad situation is this zinger:
Cuz you know what's REALLY important? Defeating that evil Rudy Guilliani!!
She hits the current problem with too many social conservatives on the head. Pauli at Est Quod Est has commented on this problem and so has the Anchoress. Some social conservatives are all ready to go third party or vote for Rawn Pawl (misspelling intentional to keep his fanatical supporters from trolling my blog) because they are not only afraid of the dreaded Rudy-monster, but because the other candidates don't pass the purity test for one reason or another.
For the record, I support Fred Thompson, which is obvious if you look at my sidebar. While I greatly admire Guilliani's courage in the midst of the horrors of 9/11, and while I think he was an excellent Mayor of New York City, I do not support him for President and do not wish to see him get the nomination. However, if he does get the nomination, I will vote for him not because I support him but because I want to keep the Democrats out of power.
I cannot believe we are again in the same situation we were in in 1992, when Perot split the conservative vote and gave us eight years of Clinton. Apparently, a fair number of social conservatives are ready to throw a petulant fit and hand the country over to the Democrat nominee (probably Hillary). And the Democrats are absolutely ecstatic over this possibility.
Yes, the social issues are important. But there are other important issues, too. Being the pragmatist I am, I believe that if an electable candidate isn't right on the social issues, I can still vote for them if they are right on defense and/or economic issues. I won't be happy about it, but part of being realistic and acting like a grown up is realizing that life isn't fair and that you won't always get what you want. You have to make due with what you are given. There are too many important things at stake right now to become one-issue voters.
Even if you believe that someone like Rudy Guilliani would do just as much damage to the socially conservative agenda as Hillary Clinton (which I don't believe, BTW), you have to consider the damage done when it comes to defense and economic issues as well.
In my opinion, some of my fellow social conservatives are being short-sighted and very foolish.
Hopefully, all of this concern about Guilliani will be for nothing and he will not get the nomination. I think he is too much of a divisive figure to get the nomination, anyway. However, mark my words, there are social conservatives who will find some sort of impurity in whoever the nominee is so that they will have an excuse to not vote for him.
That was the result of this nerd test:
(Via Barb.)
And yes, I'm back...sort of, anyway.