This is less about what’s going on in Boystown for Valentine’s Day, and more about little anecdotes from the dating world here in Chicago, for us personally. Today’s holiday just gives us an excuse to collect various bits that were never big enough for a post unto themselves — but they’re all things we find interesting and think are part of a larger picture that’s forming nationally.
Sebastian had a blind date the other day, arranged through a friend who, among other talents, considers herself an amateur matchmaker (sort of like Robby’s mom calling herself an amateur detective or historian…so still in the realm of “that’s cute”, not entering into dangerous “amateur dentist” or “amateur cardiologist” territory). The guy she matched him up with, Charlton, was very nice, but much older (40), and Bast didn’t feel a connection right off the bat but thought the guy was possible friend material. He works in a hospital, and Bast used to project manage in the healthcare world, once upon a time, pre-Great Recession, so he figured they’d have a lot to talk about. And Bast had never eaten at Jack’s on Halsted before, which he always meant to try.
It’s a little restaurant right at the corner of Halsted and Belmont, with big windows that make all the street traffic look like a giant aquarium filled with cars, which is suprisingly beautiful and interesting to watch at night. The service at Jack’s is terrible, but everyone knows that. The food’s good, though. There are a lot of restaurants like this in Boystown, where the owners hire a lot of actor-models as waiters and bartenders, and almost none of them do a remotely good job. They look great, though, and that’s all that seems to matter, to the owners and many of the customers. If you can rock a tank top and your jeans are so tight they’re practically second skin, you’re hired anywhere you want to work in Boystown.
Bast likes miniature food (and is still chagrined with the closing of Minnie’s), and thinks tasting menus are a lot of fun, so he ordered a pork tasting that Jack’s had on the menu, which sounded great: ribs, pork loin with apples, and pulled pork with sweet potatoes. To be as kind as possible, Bast has had better TV dinners…and when Abbey’s baby, Lil’ Remy, was an actual baby, and would fling his Gerber’s with gusto right in your face, Bast tasted actual baby food that tasted better than the sweet potato puree. So, the meal was disappointing.
And so was the date because Charlton just wanted to talk about how much he hated Republicans and religious people all night.
Now, when Bast recounted the blind date for us back at Buzzquarters, as soon as Panda heard that, he grabbed a big pillow off the couch and plopped it on the floor, bellied up to it, and rested his chin in his palms because he thought he was going to get another of what he calls Bast’s “Julia Sugarbaker Moments”.
If any one of us is destined to get into a bar fight, it’s Bast. He’s the one who gets punched in the face for standing up for Sarah Palin, or for little Trig, when guys in Boystown are saying vulgar things about them. He’s the one who’s most fearless, and who. more than any of us, tells it like it is.
“Oh, lordy, what did you say to him,” Panda asked, all excited, imagining Bast tore Jack’s up and stopped the traffic outside the window letting Charlton have it for dropping the typical liberal talking points.
But, no Julia Sugarbaker moment came. Bast was polite, and let the stranger at the table with him have his say, but instead of hammering him back and telling him all he was doing was parroting the dreck from MSNBC or whatever, Bast took a different route. He asked Charlton why he thought Republicans were so evil and out to get gay people, since Charlton had said, “They want to kill us”.
Really?
When did they say they wanted that?
Charlton couldn’t answer, but he talked about Prop-8 in California instead.
Bast reminded him it was Dr. Utopia’s voters that passed Prop-8…on Election Day 2008, when Dr. Utopia carried the state by a healthy margin. So, HIS voters voted FOR Prop-8. Dr. Utopia did nothing to stop them from voting FOR bigotry…and he’s done nothing to help spousal rights efforts in any state since then.
Charlton didn’t have much to say on that, but kept reiterating that Republicans “would kill us if they had the chance” and “would send us to gas chambers”. He has nothing to support that. He just says it. Again and again. Becuase it’s what he’s been taught in the LGBTQ community.
The funny thing is, all of us here used to be like this, before 2008.
You would think it would be easy to remember what it was like to be Charlton, because 2008 was not so long ago, but we’re honestly different guys today. We don’t even recognize our old selves.
It’s like when Robby ran into an ex of his recently, a guy named Jason who he had not seen in years. So, Jason had no idea the roller coaster we’ve been on through the primaries, general election, and this, The Golden Age of Hope and Change.
Jason fell into old topics, and for some reason started bashing Bush, and blaming him for the fact that Jason’s still unemployed and looking for work.
Robby stopped him, but no Julia Sugarbaker moment came out of him either (much to Panda’s great personal disappointment).
Jason couldn’t believe Robby stood up for Bush, and told him that Dr. Utopia’s been in office more than a year, and has spent over a trillion dollars on wasteful pork projects, and no jobs have come. Unemployment is 20% in Chicago, easily. Recently in the Tribune, an article ran that said, on average, 6 people are applying for every 1 job. Actually, we know that to be MUCH higher, because friends of ours in Human Resources at nonprofits here in the city say they get 400-500 applications for each job they post. They say people are so desperate that if a posting goes up at noon, they have 50 applications in by 1pm. By the end of the day, they sometimes just close the listing because they’ve gotten so many people responding they can’t possibly look at all of those resumes.
Jason had the shock of his life when Robby told him about our plans to meet Bush and his wife Laura in person later this year and thank them personally for the jobs they did in the White House. And to apologize for being a Democrat like Charlton who just repeated what Anderson Cooper told us to say, and echoed whatever rantings Keith Olbermann got up to that day.
“I don’t know who you are anymore,” is what Jason said to Robby, before trying to launch into that tired, old, chestnut of “Republicans and religious nuts are trying to kill us”, just like Charlton did.
Whenever any of us ask Liberals when Republicans have tried to kill anyone, there’s just a moment of silence, and then they launch into the “they won’t let us get married” stuff, and when we rebut that, it’s usually just a personal attack on us that comes next…as in, “I don’t know who you are!”, “What kind of gay man are you?”, “What’s wrong with you?”.
It’s a weird time in our lives, because we’re not Republicans and never will be. We’re close to not being Democrats any more…so for all intents and purposes we’re Independents.
Never saw that coming.
That matchmaking friend of Bast’s is going to have a tough one with him, because 90% of gay guys are Liberals. They don’t necessarily know what “Liberal” means, and might not ever think about any of the positions that are or are not “Liberal”, but TV says gays should be liberal, so thus they are. All of the information the guys in Boystown get comes from MSNBC and CNN. All of it.
We realized that a few months ago, and have been listening for the “tells” since. We find them everywhere we go in Boystown. At the bars, at restaurants, at coffee shops, in Whole Foods, wherever. On days when we’re someplace with a TV, if we watch just a little of whatever Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow are saying…and then head out in Boystown and listen to conversations…guys will parrot almost word for word whatever they heard said.
Never questioning it.
Never thinking for themselves.
Just repeating lines they heard someone else say.
It’s amazing.
And, since it’s not going to change any time soon, it’s something we’ve just grown to accept.
As for the Julia Sugarbaker moments that Panda loves so much, they just aren’t worth the energy. Yes, when we need to, we can bring full-on Julia to the party. Like nobody’s business. Sebastian most of all. God help anyone on the receiving end of one of Sebastian Gray’s no holds barred moments. You know our Panda. Bast is our lion (or PUMA, if you will).
But, we don’t want to be “those guys that make the scene” everywhere we go. We don’t want to argue about politics in our Bruce Wayne lives…save that for Buzzquarters…for HillBuzz…for the road on campaigns and on radio spots or whatever else we’re doing in the political world. We don’t want politics to be our whole lives.
We’d like to try a new restaurant and get to know someone without having to point out the flaws in their regurgitated tirade against people who aren’t really all that evil, if you stop and think about it.
That’s why we insist “Republicans: Not As Evil As You Think” is such a great slogan to use for the GOP in our circles. Because it hits directly at what so many gays believe, without ever thinking.
We’re determined to do something with that “Not As Evil As You Think” this year…because if we can shake that belief in the gay community, somehow, all bets could be off.
The only thing that’s keeping guys voting Democrat over and over is the fact they are all brainwashed to believe Democrats are good, and Republicans are evil.
Take that simplism out of play, and who knows what will happen.
Which is why the lot of us are so demonized and attacked for speaking out, and for telling everyone we know that it’s okay to vote for a good Republican when up against a bad Democrat.
Looking at who is in office right now, every single Democrat who voted for the Healthcare Rationing Bill and for Cap & Tax is a bad Democrat…and deserves to be booted from office lickety split.
That, however, does not mean we are Republicans. Some day, we’re going to see good Democrats in office again, with bad Republicans the ones who will draw our attention. We will never work against a good Democrat. We will never work against a good Republican.
“Good”, to us, means someone who works hard for America, has the country’s best interests at heart, and regardless of what letter is after their name, they are people who wake up every morning and try to do the best they can for the people they serve.
Boystown is a shallow place.
It’s damn fun. Never a dull moment. Lots to see and do.
But, it’s all about looking great in that tank top so everyone sees how big your guns are. It’s about having a face so pretty no one at your tables cares if they don’t get what they ordered or it takes an hour for an omelette. It’s a place where “intelligent conversation on current events” is defined as vomiting up whatever MSNBC force-fed you.
It’s hard to make friends in Boystown if you, like us, leave this little world and come back changed by the reality that America is much more important than party identity, and that people aren’t evil and trying to kill us because they go to church and love their God.
As we’ve said many times here, the absolute worst any Republican or “religious nut”, as Boystown calls them, ever did to us was say, “Boys, you ain’t right, I’l gonna pray for y’all and then you’ll get yourselves some nice wives and be normal”.
That was said to us in Texas, with a great big smile behind it, and a light in the man’s eyes because he meant this as a huge favor — and that he seriously WANTED to help us because he liked us.
It’s like we had cancer and he was saying he was going to pray and make the tumor go away so we could walk again…pray so that God would fix us. Because we are broken.
What we’re going to say right now took two years for us to get to, but we honestly see the LOVE, not the hate, in that comment. We’re taught in Boystown that a religious Texan saying something like that hates gays, hates us, wants to kill us.
While we don’t agree we are broken and need to be fixed, and while we sure as hell don’t want any wives, thank you very much, we see where that man was coming from…we know his heart, and no matter how oddly this manifested itself towards us, he was showing us love.
Our part, in return, is to show people like him understanding.
We need to continue to work with the Right when we’re both working for America’s best interests. We need to show Republicans and the religious that not all gays are set on auto-hate mode, and that we can be reasonable and take things for what they mean, if not always in the way they come across.
Do Democrats ever say, “I’m going to hope you see things our way and come around to our thinking, and then you will be all right”? Nope. They shout. They harass. They libel. They physically threaten and try to intimidate. Then, they fly into rages.
Like crazy people.
We don’t believe in any God, but we love people that do. We believe in America, and believe there really is good and evil in the world, just not as described by MSNBC.
We know there are angels, because we have met them. We were honored to have more than a few angels as friends and mentors…people who have passed on, but who won’t ever be forgotten as we love them enough, still, to make sure a little bit of them carries on with us each day.
We want to always be on the side of angels. On America’s side. Never again siding with one party or the other, exclusively, blindly, no matter what.
So, all of us have had a lot of dates.
We’ve all dated lots of guys.
We’ll still go out when amateur matchmakers set us up.
We’ll see a movie and have dinner with someone.
But, in addition to that person not being a nationality expert, we need him to be someone who isn’t drive by hatred of the Right. To be honest, we don’t want to listen to anyone going on about how much they hate the Left either.
If you notice, we work hard to oppose the Left. We are doing everything we can to see the socialist in the Oval Office now is defeated in 2012. We want every Democrat in the Senate to lose their seats because of what they did with the Healthcare Rationing bill.
But, we don’t hate any of these people. We have substantive conversations about why these people are wrong, not how evil they are. Life is too short to be that irrational, and that hateful.
So, on Valentine’s Day, thinking about a lot of things, we’ve just realized how unattractive even the prettiest guys are here in Boystown…because under the nice surfaces, there’s all this brainwashing and MSNBC talking points…and hate.
They don’t realize it. They won’t ever own up to it. They don’t know how unattractive it is.
Which is sad, but very, very true.
by Speranza ( 46 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Progressives at February 14th, 2010 - 9:00 pm
Well I never thought I would link to a Peggy Noonan article but this one caught my attention. I agree with her that Obama’s belief that moving to the center is a political loser and would be too much like George Bush – to be very revealing about how clueless the man really is. However as a Republican I would be very careful about taking advice from Peggy (1,000 points of light) Noonan. Noonanism is what gave us George H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush (a good man by the way), Bob Dole, and John McCain. What the GOP should do is (IMHO) play rope a dope with Obama, let him punch himself out trying to (unsuccessfully) force a socialist agenda on this country, pointing out where he is going wrong and telling the American public that the days of Republicans going native once they got to Washington D.C. is definitely over.
"Zero’s definition of “greatness” in a President is to defy the majority of the American population as much as possible and to ram things down our throats that will take generations of Americans to set right again."
I read this from a JP opinion piece I ran awhile ago link I think in his arrogance he believes he can do no wrong and because he has this narcissistic mind set he thinks that he is right all the time and everyone else is wrong.
"Just to be clear, winning re-election does not make a President great (see Bill Clinton) or even successful (see Richard Nixon). Winning re-election is a vote of confidence, and I suspect Obama sees the writing on the wall, or perhaps he is just bored."
Amy Bishop Is A Far-Left Extremist "Obsessed" with the President
—Gabriel Malor
Honestly, I hate how the Left goes ape-shit every time a Republican voter or supporter (not a politician) does something stupid or illegal. As if the fact that the individual is a Republican somehow has relevance to their stupid or illegal act. And as if other Republicans should feel guilty or responsible for criminal idiots hiding among us. Lefty bloggers and MSNBC are frequent abusers of this strategy and justify it by squawking "hypocrisy" as if two wrongs make a right.
So, with the note that I believe her far left views and apparently tiresome support for President Obama did nothing to cause her crazy or compel her crimes:
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Anderson said he was searching for the “trigger” to his wife’s breakdown, and that he wondered whether an e-mail message - potentially in the form of a final tenure denial - might have upset her, because university higher-ups were known to send “nastygrams” on Fridays. A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.
The article also quotes an anonymous "classmate" of Bishop's slain brother, Seth, who describes their childhood household as "anything but a home...a really dreary, dark place where there wasn’t a lot of love." I'm skeptical that so many former classmates and friends appear to be coming out of the woodwork to say predictable things about Bishop and her family, particularly those claiming recollection of events 23 years ago.
Whatever. I'm sure Bishop's "dreary, dark" childhood will be compelling in the Lifetime movie.
Posted by Gabriel Malor at
12:45 AM New Comments Thingy
44 Too bad she wasn't wearing an Obama shirt when she was arrested.
Wretchard has a post up at Belmont Club.
The shadow of the past
The comments over at Wretchards' are fabulous.
Plus more and more dirt appears to be mounding along the sides of the
hole being dug, more names are being added. Now there's the story
about two names associated historically who "won" 2 million each in
the states' lottery:
67. PA Cat:
I looked up John P Kivlan and found this. Very interesting, assuming it’s the same man.
Kivlan was also involved in two other high-profile Massachusetts cases in 1983 and 1994– the first was that of William Douglas, a Tufts University medical researcher who embezzled funds from his department in order to keep seeing a prostitute from Boston’s “Combat Zone” and then murdered the woman when she got too demanding. The second case was that of John Salvi, who went on a shooting rampage at two abortion clinics in Brookline.
Kivlan also got the nickname “Lucky Jack” when he won $2 million from the Massachusetts lottery in 1985. “Norfolk County prosecutor Peter S. Casey and fellow prosecutor John P. Kivlan often share lunch and laughs in Casey’s corner office in Dedham.
Now they share the distinction of being millionaires, courtesy of the Massachusetts State Lottery.
Casey, whose wife scratched an instant lottery card on Sunday and discovered they’d won $2 million, joins Kivlan — who won $2.7 million with a Megabucks ticket in 1985 — in the ranks of instant millionaires.”
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8251932.html
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/douglas-murder-and-embezzlement-scandal-drew-interest-from-media-1.617791
http://tech.mit.edu/V116/N13/salvi.13w.html
64. flenser:
The DA’s name on the PDF files going around is John P Kivlan. I looked up John P Kivlan and found this. Very interesting, assuming it’s the same man.
http://www.legistorm.com/person/John_P_Kivlan/12165.html
This John P Kivlan a Congressional staffer who is a part time employee of Rep William Delahunt.
![[image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Rokketmania/Military/bitterclingers.jpg)
![[obamafloat.jpg]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RwdLdQxhZGk/SabS_1PF8GI/AAAAAAAAElI/j0xKJ-xYv0E/s1600/obamafloat.jpg)
The Re-Establishment of America
Ash Wednesday Mark on Biden’s Head Puzzles British TV Host (Is she really that stupid??)
Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings
‘Rock star’ president weakens confidence
Was never intended to be elected in 2008-- it was supposed to be a dry run to introduce him, and give their side time to sanitize his background and prepare the public for his "descent from Heaven"--
Unfortunately for all of us, a lethal confluence of Media Hive enablers, white guilt, and black racism propelled this fool
far beyond his "level of incompetence..."
I also still believe Duh!1®, was "selected" by an unhappy confluence of "Mo Money" than the unfortunate Cap'n Queeg, the shadily-orchestrated meltdown of "The Economy" ( which still seems to be staggering along despite it all ) and the Ophra-ization of the masses. Aided and abetted by the dumbing down caused by Public Miseducation and too much Popular Culture, which is a cesspool of reaction shots, bumper-sticker slogans, and tits, and teeth, and asses. Literally, and figuratively...
American Idol and Survivor, writ large and smarmy...
Basically, Obama was "Marketed Better"- like soft drinks are...
...but still, he's just an empty suit:
for all those
Drinkers out there in TV land... "you gotta fall down, an' worship De Idol"--
( Old Negro Spiritual, "Shadrack, Neshack, Abendnego" )
But...
If we aren't all rounded up and re-educated at
Camp Obama
it should provide endless opportunities to hector, and catcall, and kibitz from the sidelines.
I hope all the MoonBats really, really, really enjoy having The New Little Big Fraud© at the helm. It's going to be quite a ride...
This guy really is Bad News.
And Then! There are his gullible, self-deluded camp followers:
As I have mentioned here:
OBAMAO ... is America ready for a Marxist president?[ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]
Nope, but we are about to get one, good and hard...
...so chroniclers like Yours Truly will be documenting every move he makes, every breath he takes... unless, or until, we are silenced by all that "tolerance & inclusiveness" he & his followers are already practicing.... ( "we in charge now" )
America Held Hostage- the Obama Files...
Click the picture:
Bill Maher: Palin’s Job at Fox Equivalent to Talking to Her Down Syndrome Baby
What women want in 2010: A husband who'll be the main breadwinner (British Social Attitudes Survey)
The Man Who Sold the World
It was introduced to the House on December 14 of 2000 by a Republican. Co-sponsored by three Republicans and one Democrat, it was never debated in the House.
Its companion bill was introduced in Congress the very next day (just hours before Congressional Christmas break) by a Republican. Co-sponsored by three Republicans and two Democrats, it was likewise never debated in the Senate.
It was immediately incorporated by reference into an omnibus budget bill that was passed by a vote count of 290 to 60 in the House. The Senate version passed by “Unanimous Consent.”
It was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton on December 21st, 2000, and it provided Joseph Cassano with the opportunity to make more money that he could have ever imagined.
“It” was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, the law that deregulated credit default swaps (CDS), making it possible for Cassano, head of AIG’s London-based Financial Products Division (pictured peering from the door of his $11 million home in London) to sell those swaps at an incredible rate, and at great profit to himself and to those around him.
Cassano’s AIGFPD is the acknowledged epicenter of the AIG meltdown which threatens to derail the financial stability of the world.
What is a credit default swap?
It is a contract or insurance policy between a seller (a bank) and a buyer (bondholder). The CDS maintains that the seller agrees to pay the buyer in the event of a bond default or bankruptcy. A CDS is essentially bond insurance.
The idea was presented to Cassano ten years ago, soon after his selection as head of AIGFPD, by derivative specialists from J.P. Morgan: AIG should try writing insurance policies on packaged debts known as collateralized debt obligations (CDO), pooled loans sliced into tranches and sold to investors based on their credit worthiness.
Basically, the proposal meant that the London-based unit was agreeing to provide insurance to financial institutions holding CDO’s and other debts in case they defaulted…much like homeowners are required to purchase mortgage insurance to protect lenders in the eventuality that the borrower cannot pay back the loan.
Because the underlying debt securities were highly rated, AIG Financial Products was more than happy to book income in exchange for providing short-term (according to AIG, four or five years at the longest) insurance policies, Joe Cassano and his colleagues never dreamed that they would actually have to pay any claims. Since AIG was a highly-rated company, it did not have to put up any collateral on the insurance it wrote, making the sale of CDS even more profitable.
These credit default swaps turned AIG’s 377 man office into a veritable cash register…Joe Cassano had discovered a money tree.
Revenues rose from $737 million in 1999, to $3.26 billion in 2005; AIGFPD provided 17.5% of AIG’s operating income for 2005. Along with operating income, personal earnings rose dramatically; Joe Cassano, and the employees of AIGFPD were paid in excess of $3.56 billion in the last seven years, which means that on the average, each person in the unit made more than $1 million per year.
Joe Cassano himself earned $280 million in cash during that period of time– more than AIG chief executives — and for every dollar his financial products unit made, 30 cents came back to Cassano and other top execs.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, things were turning sour on the post 9-11 economic boom. Speculative home buying, spurred by interest rates that hovered around 1%, began to bottom out. In addition, a major push by the Democratic majority in Congress to make buying a home a reality to lower-income families, had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lowering down-payment requirements and relaxing lending standards, which added to the already alarming build up of bad mortgage debt. When these new homeowners found themselves incapable of dealing with the increases in their mortgage payments as their interest-only and Adjustable Rate Mortgages, matured, they were forced to walk away from their homes.
The real estate market plummeted. Following close behind it, and possibly as a reaction to the real possibility of Barack Obama (who campaigned on doubling the capital gains tax upon being elected) winning the election, the stock market followed. And AIG’s Financial Products Division suddenly found itself in a position they never expected to be in…they had claims to pay, a lot of claims to pay.
At this point in time, AIG’s Financial Product’s portfolio of credit default swaps stood at $500 billion, and it was generating $250 million a year in income on insurance premiums. AIGFPD was not an insurance company, it was set up as a bank, never required to report to state insurance regulators, and as the worth of the securities they insured declined, they had to put up collateral to their trading partners. Collateral they did not posses.
Any obligations that Cassano’s AIGFPD could not meet had to be paid by its corporate parent, and AIG, the 18th largest public company in the world (according to Forbes Global 2000 list of 2008) was brought to its knees.
Joseph Cassano was fired by AIG in February of 2008 after his unit posted an $11 billion loss, but was allowed to keep $34 million in bonuses, and was kept on as a consultant on a salary of $1 million per month. Since his firing, AIG has posted additional losses of nearly $89 billion, for total posted losses to date of nearly $100 billion. The US government has pumped $173 billion into AIG in an effort to stave off a global financial failure of indescribable proportions.
Unread legislation, slammed through without debate in a show of bipartisan recklessness, signed into law by a lame-duck President in the waning days of his tenure. Thoughtless, politically-driven financial decisions designed to garner votes. Promises of higher corporate taxation from a Socialist Presidential candidate drunk on the wine of populism and hubris. All these factors contributed to this crisis, and led to the loss of untold billions. And Joseph Cassano figured out a way to make all of that pay off in spectacular fashion.
When asked last September if he felt responsible for the AIG crisis, Joe Cassano smiled and said “I left there six months ago.”
CIA Columbia Obama Cover Up
NASA plans more outreach to Muslim countries (as Obama kills US Manned Spaceflight Program!)
Figures. Michelle Obama Stocked White House Library with Books on Socialism
Tax audits: Uncle Sam wants you!
Is Lautenberg next? [illegally selected senator from N.J.]
Providers May Be Forced To Help Cops Track Phones
1st federally sanctioned prison cell phone jamming test takes place in Maryland
I Was A ‘Useful Idiot’
Lawsuit: PA School District Using School-Issued Laptop Webcams to Spy on Students AT HOME
Collapse Continues
Climate Change: The scientific "consensus" that man is warming the planet is cracking, and so is a group that was going to push for cap-and-trade. Some business members no longer feel threatened by the government.
Oil giants ConocoPhillips and BP and heavy equipment maker Caterpillar said Tuesday they'd be leaving the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, described on IBD's front page as "a coalition of green groups and leading corporations pushing for a cap-and-trade bill to curb emissions of carbon dioxide."
IBD on Wednesday reported that the three corporations "indicated that their leaving was based on disputes within USCAP over the direction the legislation was taking in Congress," that it has become "now tilted toward coal-based energy producers."
We're not as diplomatic as these companies, so we can provide a more plausible explanation: They see the agenda of the global warming alarmists crumbling and have determined they don't have as much to fear from government regulation as they once did.
Because onerous government policy distorts markets and cuts into profits, it's rational for companies to try to protect themselves from regulatory damage.
One way to avoid or limit damage from a regulatory regime is to be part of the regulation-writing exercise by joining a coalition involved in the process.
When it becomes clear that new rules aren't forthcoming, there's no longer a need to be part of the group.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
What to say to a global warming alarmist
The Sliming Of The Tea Party
Politics: As the grass-roots activists meet with the Republican National Committee, the New York Times takes a look at them, deciding they are bitter people clinging to their guns. Meanwhile, leading Democrats plot their destruction.
No doubt the meeting between representatives of the Tea Party movement and RNC Chairman Michael Steele will be seen by uber-liberals as confirmation that the Tea Party movement is merely a franchise of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
In fact, Steele was merely doing what the Democrats still refuse to do — listen to Americans frustrated by a government that ignores their wishes and dismisses their concerns while bulking up with power. They are the "we the people" part of the Constitution the Democrats continually try to make end runs around, the health care overhaul being a prime example.
The meeting between the Tea Partyers and the RNC was not an attempt to co-opt their movement. It was an attempt to provide a forum for their voices to be heard. And heard they were. Government is supposed to operate with the consent of the governed. The Tea Party movement hardly consents to runaway spending and debt that will burden our children and grandchildren.
Steele spent nearly four hours Tuesday at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., listening to average Americans petition for a redress of their grievances. Judging from recent elections, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are ignoring them at their peril.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
B-Cast Interviews Dr John C. Drew On Obama’s Early Marxist Years (Video)
Did the Civil War truly settle the secession question?
Nuclear plants on hold
Zimbabwe $100 Trillion Banknote (2009) [Carry It In Your Wallet: Instant Economics Lesson!]
The Clinton Surplus Myth
Clinton Plotting Tea Party Counterattack
O'Donnell & Garofalo Attack Fox News: Hannity is a Liar, Fox & Friends Hosts Are "douchebags"
I do not, generally, regard mocking an opponent's appearance as fair game- ideas and concepts should stand or fall on their own merits...
However...Proof that Liberalism is corrosive, and Hollyweird is just, well, weird?
From "sorta cute"--
To "tattoo'd Tart"--
More:
http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1229465&sid=bf088166f2d9854049a30ad76bc1f89d#1229465
And for those who want even more, there is the keyword database of links--
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/janeanegarofalo/index
A sampler, with MoonBat flappings going back to 1998:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/882365/posts
Hollywood Halfwits: Idiotic Janeane Garofalo Quotes
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2003 8:59:38 PM by PJ-Comix
Ted Strickland’s Drug Sting Cover Up (Governor of OHIO - "D")
(Funny Video)THIS MUST GO VIRAL: "ObamaCare, America's fallen and can't get up."