Tech at Night

They told us for years that Mitt Romney was a terrible person because of his ties to private equity. Now Julius Genachowski, Obama’s first FCC chair is going into private equity, and not a peep from the radicals.

Erick Erickson’s already covered all the reasons Peter King should be excluded from polite political society, but I just want to remind as well that Rand Paul’s grandstanding isn’t all that great. Snowden is an unrepentant criminal and traitor and it’s a shame that Paul is just sucking up to his father’s crazier fans. I guess he really wants their campaign donations more than he wants his dignity.

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Manning is attempting to game the political system

On August 22, 2013, in General, by Neil Stevens
leavenworth

Upon being sentenced to 35 years in prison and losing his rank, Private Manning chose this moment to announce “I am female.” Manning claims that the name Bradley is no longer to be used. Chelsea Manning is the name we are to use. Manning’s lawyer are all over this, too, claiming that it is now a right to begin hormone therapy on the taxpayer dime.

Everything about this stinks, though. There’s no evidence of a medical diagnosis. The timing is all too perfect. The political effects are undeniable, in that Manning will get a new group of people who will reflexively give defense because of this newly claimed status.

I’m convinced this announced self-diagnosis by Manning is an attempt to win over new supporters on the Internet, the land of the politically polarized, and the home of the self-diagnosed. It may also be a last-ditch attempt to avoid prison.

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Tech at Night

The UN’s WIPO is an established, but controversial, arbiter of Internet domain name/trademark disputes. So I find it absolutely hilarious that Ron Paul is using it to go after his own supporters. This is even sillier than Hasbro shutting down My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, the game that raised thousands of dollars for cancer research.

Just because we have the right to do something, it doesn’t mean that it is right to do that thing. Sometimes exerting your rights to their fullest extent just isn’t the right thing to do, and some sort of solution should be found that’s win-win. Especially when we’re raising money for cancer, as in the case of MLP: Fighting is Magic in the Evo contest.

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Tech at Night

Things that are compatible with Google’s values: Prostitutes. Websites for copyright infringement. Illegal drugs. Pornography. Mortgage scams. Spying on people’s wireless networks. Things that are incompatible with Google’s values: legal exercise of Second Amendment rights.

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No, Ron Paul is not a threat to win the Iowa Caucuses

On December 13, 2011, in General, by Neil Stevens

It doesn’t matter what you think the new Public Policy Polling result says. It doesn’t matter how many gleeful Democrats are writing up news stories claiming it’s true. It’s not.

Ron Paul, King of Earmarks, Full Metal Truther, and Archbishop of the anti-American Gnostic Constitutionalists, is not going to win the Iowa caucuses or even get close for one simple reason.

He wins people who don’t vote, but the Iowa caucuses only admit Republicans.

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A convention with no majority

On December 8, 2011, in General, by Neil Stevens

Let’s imagine a Republican National Convention with no majority nominee on the first ballot. How do we think the first ballot will wind up? There are only so many candidates that are capable of getting enough delegates to stop that, so I expect the delegate count would wind up in the neighborhood of Newt Gingrich 40%, Mitt Romney 40%, Rick Perry 10%, Ron Paul 5%, and scattering votes making up the remaining 5%.

Even in the unlikely scenario that we get no majority, how do stop Mitt Romney (or Newt Gingrich) from finding the votes he needs simply by picking up delegates for whom Romney is a second choice, plus making promises to spend X number of dollars campaigning in selected states this cycle in order to win over party officials from various states? That’s a maneuver described to me by a friend as Pawlentying the vote.

Once the convention gets control, the voters lose any say. Though I think such an event is unlikely, it still troubles me that anyone would root for it.

Nima Jooyandeh facts.