First: diversions. Twins accidentally married each other. Whimsical! And needlessly tragic. Count how many times CNN assumes this looks like a job for ... legislators? While you have your fingers and toes up, tally the AJC's implications that poor merchants in poor communities would never get robbed if they just filled out some forms. On to our main event.

Um. Yeah. Ron Paul. Luckily, it's irrelevant whether he's a racist or not, because even though he almost surely is not one, he has been an enabler of way too many of them. The clincher is Paul's continued association with the likely guilty party; and, yes, we believe in innocent until proven guilty more than anybody, but when the accused has no interest in proving innocence, somebody has to decide. His campaign is beached, obviously, but the bigger question is what this means to the future of libertarianism.

Which sounds better: 1. Oh, you're a libertarian? Like that guy Ron Paul who thinks MLK raped children? 2. Oh, you're a libertarian? Like that guy Ron Paul who won the Alaska primary? So it is still in our interest for Paul to salvage face.

Some cohorts claim it would be better for libertarians to compromise with conservatives (conservatives??) instead of all this "believing in shit" nonsense. Well, as we know, Ron Paul WAS the compromise. They come along so rarely, and contrast so sharply with their fellow members of the elite leech class, that men like Goldwater and Paul can seem like momentary messiahs; as if to provide an appropriately nerdy metaphor for the first ever revolt both waged and crushed via the Web, I can't stop remembering the scene in Star Wars III where Obi-Wan looks at the scalding, mutilated, seething stump of something that used to be Anakin Skywalker and screams, "You were my brother! You were the chosen one!"

And he did seem to be. He was far from ideal, and not because of his inability to speak without using run-ons, which is kind of awesome. He wasn't a libertarian, but he was close enough for us to forget that; plus, he's got more balls than the nightly Pick Six. Now we know: instead of waiting for the next One, just be the one. This is not the end. For all the damage Paul's negligence has done, he's also opened minds to anti-war and anti-tax principles, which will blossom in at least a few into full embraces of liberty. So long as he battles a little longer, and maybe spits once more in an esoteric and comma-heavy fashion in one last frontrunner's face (Romney, for one, hasn't felt a Ronslaught! yet), the Paul candidacy can be counted a net gain for the greater movement.

I'd also like to nominate this as the official elegy of the rEVOLution. Any others?