Ron Paul

Ron Paul, Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul waves to supporters after speaking at his primary night campaign rally on Jan. 10, 2012 in Manchester, New Hampshire. According to early results, Paul finished second behind Mitt Romney. Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul waves to supporters after speaking at his primary night campaign rally on Jan. 10, 2012 in Manchester, New Hampshire. According to early results, Paul finished second behind Mitt Romney.
The career of Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), just peaked. The 76-year-old congressman never passed much legislation. He lived for this moment when he would bask in the glory of his maximum popularity. After performing surprising well in the Iowa caucuses, Paul has finished second in New Hampshire with 23 percent of the vote.

But it’s all downhill from here. The campaign will now head on to Southern states, where Republican voters are more hawkish and socially conservative than those in New Hampshire. The media will lose interest in Paul once Mitt Romney, who won both Iowa and New Hampshire, has the nomination presumptively wrapped up. Paul has said he won’t run for re-election to Congress this year, and he’s unlikely to run for president again in 2016. His maximum relevance was yesterday.

You’d never know it, though, from the demeanor of Paul and the majority of his supporters. At Paul’s election night celebration Tuesday night in Manchester, New Hampshire, he addressed a crowd that was younger, longer-haired and noticeably more boisterous than those drawn by his competitors at their recent campaign events. Where other candidates’ supporters have only cheers that reflect their candidate preference-“Mitt, Mitt, Mitt”-Paul’s have cheers for all his major platform planks. Whenever Paul hit the appropriate line in his speech, the crowd would break into a chant: “End the Fed!” “Bring them [our soldiers] home!” and “Ron Paul revolution, we support our Constitution!”

Paul proudly declared “a victory for the cause of liberty tonight,” and promised, “This effort will not go unnoticed.” But it probably will. In 2008 Paul performed surprisingly well in the primaries, but the Republican Party has hardly adopted his platform. Most of his opponents are as hawkish as George W. Bush. The only movement towards Paul’s position on one of his hobbyhorses is the mainstreaming of demonizing the Federal Reserve and fretting about the “soundness” of our money. But that’s only because there’s a Democrat in the White House and the Fed-which incidentally is still run by Bush appointee Ben Bernanke-taking action to boost the economy, could damage a Republican’s chances of winning the presidency. As soon as there is a Republican president, Republicans will rediscover the virtues of goosing the monetary supply when a recession hits.

Hong Kong Bird Flu

Hong Kong Bird Flu, Hong Kong culled 19,451 birds and banned the sale and import of live poultry until Jan. 12 after the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found in a chicken carcass at a wholesale market.

The 30 chicken farms in Hong Kong were tested, with all samples free of avian influenza, the city government said in a press release yesterday evening. The Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department will conduct further testing.

Hong Kong takes a tough line on the highly pathogenic strain of flu virus, first recorded in humans in the city in 1997 and which has since spread through Asia, Europe and Africa, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds and killing more than half of the people that caught it. The city of 7 million people was also hit by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003 in which 299 people died.

“Hong Kong has the best H5N1 contingency plan to be found in any part of the world,” said Yuen Kwok-yung, chairman of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong’s department of microbiology. “We should not panic. Every winter there is increased H5N1 activity in poultry and migratory birds.”

In 1997, the government ordered all poultry in Hong Kong to be culled. Many families in rural areas kept chickens in back- yard wood-and-wire hutches that can still be seen lying empty and rusting in villages across the territory. Ducks, geese and pigeons are also widely eaten in Hong Kong.