I’ve talked about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative here before, but that was in the context of Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is a close friend of Rupert Murdoch, by the way. I’m troubled by that relationship. I’m concerned. I would even go so far as to say that Kasich’s passionate defense of Murdoch in major media raises more questions than it answers.
In any event, the Great Lakes Restoration project continues, despite Rupert Murdoch and John Kasich:
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades. A task force of 11 federal agencies developed a plan to put the president’s historic initiative into action. This action plan covers fiscal years 2010 through 2014 and addresses five urgent focus areas:
Cleaning up toxics and areas of concern
Combating invasive species
Promoting nearshore health by protecting watersheds from polluted run-off
Restoring wetlands and other habitats
Working with partners on outreach.
Which is good, because we have some issues with Lake Erie:
A huge bloom of potentially toxic microcystis algae, which has reared its ugly head almost annually since 1995 after more than a 20-year absence, has been visible from space since at least July 22. European Space Agency satellite photos given to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor show how it formed in the Monroe area, grew, and has fanned out to the Lake Erie islands.
This problem has gone unaddressed since 1995, so it’s going to be a long haul.
The algae, though, wouldn’t be there if not for the region’s ongoing battle with controlling both storm water and agricultural runoff. It is likely to be a topic of discussion when President Obama’s chief adviser on Great Lakes issues, Cameron Davis, visits the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center in Oregon tomorrow with U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) and UT President Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, according to an aide for Miss Kaptur.
Mr. Davis is to unveil the latest round of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grants, a program that has brought the Great Lakes region a historic amount of new money to combat pollution. Although its anticipated funding of about $300 million is down significantly from its first-year allocation of $475 million, the program is in response to Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign pledge to infuse the Great Lakes region with at least $5 billion for cleanup during his administration. More than $20 billion worth of needs, mostly sewage spills that helped algae grow, have been identified.
I went to a Great Lakes water forum in 2005 or thereabouts and Marcy Kaptur was a speaker at that one, too. She’s genuinely knowledgeable on water issues. I learned a lot.
During the Q and A session a 9-11 Truther stood up and delivered a screed poorly disguised as a question. Kaptur responded with her concerns about our dependence on foreign oil, her fuel efficiency agenda for the US auto industry, and a completely irrelevant anecdote about her brother, who is a machinist. She then tipped her head, smiled, and said, “I hope that answers your question”. She’s a pro.
ET
But, but, but…. the magical private sector will fix this!
Right. Because they will make money from it.
Kay
@ET:
You already know this, but it’s an absolutely amazing resource and public asset. To treat the Great Lakes so cavalierly is just shameful. We’re not making any more of them.
Mustang Bobby
It’s good to see that coverage in The Blade, which can still pleasantly surprise me with its reporting on issues like this.
Growing up on the lake in the ’60’s and remembering what a cesspool it was then, I was really glad to see that in the last 40 years it had made some progress. I hope that it continues in spite of John Kasich.
Culture of Truth
There was a time when Republicans could be counted on to do the right thing is situations like this, which made politics less painfully exhausting all around.
Heck, George Pataki was good on the environment, for example. Now, I don’t know what’s up with even the East coast GOP.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, there’s your problem, right there.
European Space Agency. Can’t trust those soshulist Europeans. They hate our freedumb!
efroh
I remember working as an intern in Marcy Kaptur’s DC office in the 90s. She really loved using AEI stats. :(
Kay
@Culture of Truth:
Okay, in defense of conservatives, Taft and Voinovich both came out against the Ohio GOP’s absolutely insane Chamber of Commerce drafted bill to de-regulate Lake Erie water withdrawals.
Neither man is running for anything, of course, so it’s not profiles in courage, but it was a decent thing to do.
The Worst Person In the World
Kay, what is your working definition of a “9/11 Truther?”
Do you believe the official government version, and the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission in their entirety?
Culture of Truth
@Kay: See, there you go. But they’re old school.
Lee Baker
“… the Ohio GOP’s absolutely insane Chamber of Commerce drafted bill to de-regulate Lake Erie water withdrawals”: Didn’t Kasich, to his credit (and I never imagined I would say THAT), veto this legislation?
Kay
@Culture of Truth:
I think Taft always looks at his family legacy, so I don’t really consider that “the public good” :)
I’m not all that interested in the Taft Family Legacy, actually.
Voinovich just hates everyone, Republican, Democrat, whatever. He’s sick of all this bickering, is my general feeling on him.
But, I’ll give them both the faintest of praise!
Kay
@Lee Baker:
He did, but we’ll have to see what work-around he comes up with to satisfy the Chamber/Grover Norquist before we let him off the hook.
Yevgraf
OT, but the unelected S&P is ratfucking the world.
These are the faces and names of the fuckwits who are ruining everything.
http://www.standardandpoors.com/about-sp/management-profiles/en/us
Culture of Truth
It beats “Cut taxes for the rich or the lake gets it!”
Lydgate
This is a huge deal and I’m breathing a sigh of relief that Kasich vetoed the Chamber of Commerce crafted legislation. The Great Lakes contain 1/20th the world’s freshwater supply for crying out loud. But yes, we need to keep an eye out for what exactly Kasich is going to do to satisfy the Chamber.
patrick
guess I’ll be more excited once they decide to finally do something serious, like closing the chicago shipping canal to make sure the asian carp stays out of the great lakes….
or maybe they are planning on having the carp control Lake Erie’s algae bloom after it devestates lake michigan’s lake trout population…
Villago Delenda Est
The truth of 9/11 is that the deserting coward malassministration knew something was going to happen, not the specifics, and didn’t take any steps to do anything about it, knowing that whatever happened, they could use it to their political advantage.
When it did happen, they were as shocked at the extent of it as any of the rest of us, but immediately put their plan on how to exploit it into operation. Specifically, to link the attack to Saddam Hussein without any regard to actual reality, which is that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were blood enemies, specifically because Saddam was the most terrible thing possible to Osama: a secular Muslim. Because the malassministration really, really, REALLY wanted to invade Iraq and get its mits on all that sweet crude of ours under Iraqi controlled land.
The 9/11 truthers miss the boat on the evil of reality, seeking something more in line with what Ernst Stavro Blofeld would try to pull off.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Bugger all, this is one of the reasons that I’ve settled here in NE Ohio.
We get no hurricanes, nearly no earthquakes, no volcanoes, damn few tornadoes, and in this time of global climate change and drought, we’re sitting on one of Earth’s biggest supplies of fresh water.
And motherfucking Republicans are trying to fuck that up, too.
The Republic of Stupidity
There…
Now that statement is complete…
PeakVT
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Don’t take it personally. At this point Republicans basically try to fuck up anything that’s good.
jwb
@Yevgraf: The question is who is calling the shots (S&P is owned by McGraw Hill) and why. The politics on the downgrade are not immediately obvious to me. That is, it is completely obvious that it is politically motivated, but I remain uncertain as to the ultimate political goal.
Derf
Plenty of breathless gloom porn around here about the S&P nonsense. Apparently the same people who gave Mortgage Backed Securities a AAA rating deserve to be taken seriously for giving Gov’t bonds a lower rating.
So it is no surprise all the gloom porn addicts around here totally ignored what Buffett had to say about it.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44056326
Frankensteinbeck
Do keep this project in mind whenever you hear the argument that Obama hasn’t done anything but fight a defensive action against the GOP. Just because nobody talks about his investments in the future doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
@PeakVT:
It’s sad, isn’t it? Their entire platform right now is ‘If you’re for it, I’m against it.’
@Villago Delenda Est:
Now, now. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Especially with George Bush. Not caring enough to follow up on (always unreliable) warnings is not the same as wanting them to happen, although Cheney’s previous statements about how such an event could be taken advantage of do give you reason to wonder. I don’t at all buy that the war was about oil, either. They didn’t try that hard to protect or exploit the oil after the invasion, and it didn’t feature prominently in any of the leaked information about planning. Everything that came out afterwards about Iraq said that George Bush had a giant hard-on to be remembered in history as an awesome war president and the guy who finished what his father couldn’t. And Cheney was a true neocon, who believed in American hegemony and that the brown heathens would be grateful if we conquered them. Sure, they threw in a fair share of ‘Hey, my buddies can make a fortune off of this!’ afterwards, but the jonesing for Iraq from day one didn’t have much to do with oil.
kay
@The Republic of Stupidity:
We have to start using “troubled”. I love that. It’s replaced “concerned”.
“I’m troubled by the fact that a US governor is (seemingly!) so close to an international media mogul/ alleged criminal co-conspirator.”
Poopyman
@Kay: The current GOP has nothing to do with Conservatives.
@Villago Delenda Est: I noticed that too. Curious, because there’s plenty of data coming off of NOAA and NASA satellites.
I’m happy to see the GLRI continuing. Maybe because I live down here, but I’ve been more focused on the efforts to restore the Ches Bay. The Great Lakes surely have a larger coastline and greater volume of water and have been suffering since before I was a kid.
Other than that I’ve got nuthin’. Been camping since Thursday. Anything happen since I’ve been gone?
Amir Khalid
@Derf:
The little bird of happiness has come to fill the birdcage liner.
kay
@Poopyman:
I don’t let them get away with that. They’re all conservatives. There’s no practical or operative difference between the terms “Republican”, “conservative” or “Tea Party” in our system, and based on their actions.
Screw them. If they’re going to change “Democratic” to “Democrat” and make liberal into a dirty word, two can play at that game.
If conservatives want to differentiate on anything other than a rhetorical basis, they’re going to have to oppose the GOP/Tea Party loonies occasionally, which they never do, in any real way.
I’m not giving them that. They have to earn it.
Poopyman
@kay: How can we take you seriously if you sound so shrill?
OTOH, point(s) taken.
arguingwithsignposts
This is OT, but it looks like the ratings agency original gangstas have decided to continue their little spree:
Boom.
Frankensteinbeck
@kay: and @Poopyman:
I am split here. I think that for practical, everyday use we should and have to go with Kay. They’ve adopted the word. They’ve defined it, and the vast majority use of the word is to describe these people. Whether or not they’ve mutated it beyond recognition, ‘conservative’ now means ‘GOP partisan’.
But it’s useful to remember that it used to mean something else. I’ve heard someone describe Obama as a ‘conservative’ in a very old sense, in that he believes change should be incremental and within the system, that financial stability is important rather than cutting all spending and giving the money to rich people, and the military has a legitimate role in defending America’s interests rather than showing everyone we’re the big kid on the block.
It’s interesting that ‘conservative’ has mutated so far, but it HAS mutated and they self-describe as ‘conservatives’ and we need to hang them by that name.
kay
@Poopyman:
Republicans tried it with me here after they lost their ridiculous and embarrassing man-crush on Bush.
“But, he wasn’t a conservative!”
Oh, okay. I had no idea. You’re off the hook then.
Fat chance they’re getting away with that :)
Did you notice the deafening silence from the principled (elected) conservative camp when Tea Partiers were holding the country hostage?
Until they break ranks, they’re all the same.
artem1s
Kasich’s pals seem mostly intent on deregulating mining, drilling and lumber. Also.too they are using their connections to raid the state parks and setting up drilling and cutting permits.
while Kasich passed on the changes Kay cited, the long term danger is the slippery slope to slant drilling under Lake Erie and who knows whether fracking will cause seepage problems or the pipelines to move all the stuff around once they’ve gotten it out of the ground.
Reality Check
Wow, have you guys checked the price of gold recently? Skyrocketing!
Villago Delenda Est
@Unreality Check:
As Adam Smith once observed (I know, can’t trust a European soshulist about anything…) the ‘value’ in gold is in what products of labor it can obtain. You can’t eat gold, at least not for nutritional value, but it’s not essential for life like water is, unless you’re a Ferengi shitstain. Which of course you are.
Villago Delenda Est
@artem1s:
Which means, basically, that they want the public at large to eat their externalized costs even moreso than the public does now.
These people are essentially seeking to freeload. It’s what they do.
Reality Check
@Villago Delenda Est:
It can obtain a hell of a lot more right now than the constantly devaluing paper dollar in your wallet.
In any case, recent events in fact don’t give me much confidence in fiscal advice from Europeans.
Frankensteinbeck
Reality Check:
What’s funny is that you and most goldbugs don’t realize that gold has no more intrinsic value than paper, and these fluctuations are an example of that.
Reality Check
@Frankensteinbeck:
It is used in computers and jewelry, and people have realized for 100s of thousands of years gold’s intrinsic value. How many paper currencies have lasted that long? Oh yeah. None.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Isn’t that a Mozart opera?
@Reality Check: Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble…
scav
Let’s see if I’ve got the essential logic here. Everyone keeps saying that the 25th of December is Xmas over and over and over again for centuries and then the 25th of December rolls around and people celebrate Xmas. Reality Chex is simply stunned and gobsmacked as this proves he was correct about everything he ever conceived.
Meanwhile, guys in suits have discovered that the economy hasn’t been doing as well as they’ve insisted it’s been doing for a long time, despite those of us living in same economy having figured that out a long time ago. Panic ensues.
Reality Check
@Yutsano:
Bubble? As governments on both sides of the Atlantic continue to crank up the printing presses, and get in more and more debt, gold will continue to rise. I’m thinking $3,000/ounce by 2013 easily.
If America and Europe get their fiscal houses in order, well, then maybe it is time to sell.
kay
@Reality Check:
Just try not to destroy our property values with your disgusting subservient corporate boot-licking and rampant irresponsible misuse of natural resources, okay, Tea Bagger?
Just leave us alone. We’ll clean up the mess.
Try not to auction the country’s common assets off to the lowest Chamber bidder while we’re cleaning up after you.
Reality Check
What other assets should people invest in that are as solid as gold right now? Oil? Maybe! That’s also a good choice in the long run. Swiss Francs are decent too.
But what else? Yen? Hahaha. Dollars? HAHAHAHA! Euros? ROFL!!!!!
Yutsano
@Reality Check: Wait…what is gold valuated with? Currency you say? Oops…
Reality Check
@Yutsano:
What a stupid statement. You could turn it around and say the dollar is valuated with gold.
Frankensteinbeck
Reality Check:
Wrong on every count, my boy. China’s been using paper currency for thousands of years, and individual scrips lasted centuries. Gold is used in industry, but in amounts too low to have an effect on anything. It’s also easily replaceable. It IS pretty, but so is pewter. Gold is worth something because people think it can be exchanged for real goods. Same as paper money. ALL currency is fiat currency.
Reality Check
@Frankensteinbeck:
No scripts have lasted as long as gold has, and gold has been highly valued by every culture in history. People KNOW it has intrinsic value when they hold it in their hands. BTW, the vast majority of those Chinese scripts were directly backed by…wait for it…gold. They collapsed when they link between the scripts and gold was broken. Some sooner, some later, but they all did.
scav
@Reality Check: exactly. It’s all magic and equally meaningless in both directions.
ETA: and the Mayans/Aztec/Mesoamerican civs cared shit about gold though they made nice things with it.
Yutsano
@Reality Check: LOL. Okay. Just try and sell that gold certificate for the same amount of gold. What’s that? You can’t? Wow…what are you gonna do with a bunch of metal you can’t liquidate because you won’t turn it into an actual legal tender?
Reality Check
@Yutsano:
What are you babbling about? I bought real physical gold, not gold certificates.
Chyron HR
Gold has intrinsic value! That’s why it’s worth more today than it was yesterday, because its value is so intrinsic!
scav
Oh, Yutsano, Sorry about missing you with asparagus spears at dawn, I was taking a sanity break. Is there any special recipe you have for you G-whatever your were bringing? I noticed it had lemon garlic and olives which are always things I’m in favor of more of.
askew
Thanks for highlighting one of the more hidden progressive projects that the Obama admin has undertaken.
The Great Lakes have been neglected for decades (Clinton’s record on environmental issues was awful). It will be great to see some serious investment in the region.
Reality Check
Question: I’m willing to either open a Swiss Bank Account with $1,700 worth of paper dollars in it, or open a safe despot box with $1,700 worth of gold in it. Which would you rather have?
Yutsano
@scav: Traditional gremolata is garlic, parsley, and lemon zest, chopped fine. You can zip up the tang factor with olives or capers or what have you. It’s pretty flexible, but an extreme basic one is just the garlic and parsley. Very very easy to prepare and good on lots of veggies and meats.
@Reality Check: You can’t even understand what a liquidatable asset is. So you’re just an idiot goldbug who will lose his shirt when the bubble pops.
Reality Check
@Yutsano:
Thank for your concern trolling.
I was told the same thing by people like you when gold hit $800. “Get out now! It’s a bubble!” Then the same thing when it hit $1,200 “You can’t be serious! The collapse is on the way!” Then when it hit $1,500 “SURELY this has to be a bubble, the end is near!”
Now it’s up at $1,700 on its way to $2,000, and I’m hearing the same concern trolling. Meanwhile, the only bubble to pop has been the bubble of the Dollar, the bubble of the Euro, the bubble of the Yen, and now the bubble of the stock market.
But SURELY the gold concern trolls and “experts” have to be right THIS time! Right? RIGHT?
scav
@Yutsano: Brilliant, thanks. I’ve got a handle on the Tapenade spectrum so I can slot this one in as the Garlic/Parsley anchor in the universe. Luckily, it’s a shopping day.
Yutsano
@scav: Glad to be of service. And I’m ignoring the goldbug idiot now. Really. I am. :)
scav
Reality Chex. Let’s try it this way. You’re arguing that the 25th of December is the actual date of Christ’s birth and we’re telling you that it’s merely a tradition. When people unwrap presents proves nothing. Money can be made on a shared delusion and it all works until people stop believing in it.
ETA: I’ll follow Yutsano’s fine example at this point in two things.
Reality Check
@scav:
Answer my question first. Which would YOU choose: $1,700 of paper money in a bank account, or an ounce of gold? Why?
scav
@Reality Check: Depends entirely upon what culture I was in. Because their belief in what has value is what determines it. At one point, Beanie Babies would have been the correct answer.
Damn! Sorry Yutsano.
Reality Check
@scav:
You’re ducking the question. Give me a straight answer. Which would you, scav, from (I assume) North America, rather have tomorrow if you could choose between $1,700 of paper money of an ounce of gold? Straight answer.
Reality Check
And I don’t see what the fact that the Jesus Freaks invented their god’s birth out of whole cloth by ripping off a pagan holiday has anything to do with it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Unreality Check:
$1700 in a bank account. It’s liquid, you see. I can buy a meal with it.
An ounce of gold? Not so much.
I’d suggest you read the first few chapters of Smith, but you’re obviously too fucking stupid to comprehend it.
Reality Check
@Villago Delenda Est:
What do you know about Smith? You’re ideology is based on Marx and Engles.
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Which would you rather have had last Thursday, $1,700 in cash or an ounce of gold?
Villago Delenda Est
@Uneality Check:
You see, unlike you, I’ve actually read (and more importantly, comprehended) The Wealth of Nations.
Which is what inspired Marx to write Das Kapital.
But, again, you’re too stupid to realize that.
Reality Check
@Chyron HR:
Gold.
If this were 1999, when we had a balanced budget, surplus, and the dollar was strong and stable? Then sure, the money.
priscianusjr
Conservation and environmental restoration is an investment in the earth. The earth is the basis of all wealth and all health. If we made more investment in the earth and stopped investing in toxicity and blight it would strengthen the entire economy. Unfortunately too many moneymakers make their money by freeloading off the environment, dumping crap into it for free and taking stuff out of it at public expense so everybody else including future generations have to suffer.
The Worst Person In the World
Naturally, and notably, Kay, the rising young tool, has completely ignored my question as to how she defines a “9/11 Truther.”
So in conclusion: Within the U.S. and its twisted media/elite boundaries of discussion, not only are citizens encouraged to NOT question the government story, it is considered bad form to ask for a definition of mindless/insulting terms meant to marginalize and disparage those who do ask questions.
Do I have that right, Kay?
Reality Check
@The Worst Person In the World:
Go take your meds, mclaren.
polyorchnid octopunch
The Worst Person In The World @70: or it might simply be that she immediately recognised you as a complete troll, and declined to give you any more attention than you actually deserve. In short… who gives a ratfuck about that? The people in question are clearly criminals without getting into any of that 9/11 truther stuff; using occam’s razor says that we don’t really need to dig into that to be able to nominally (if not actually given the current state of the lack-of-justice in America) recognize that Bush Cheney etc are all war criminals.
Pay attention to something that’s important, like the ongoing looting of the wealth of the vast majority of Americans by a tiny elite that have utterly corrupted the people working inside your institutions.
The Worst Person In the World
@Reality Check:
Nice, in fact, EXCELLENT, illustration of how the 9/11 discussion is strictly policed even by such brain-free retards as yourself.
Thank you!
Reality Check
@mclaren:
Really? Your mom makes the best pies? I’m not sure about that, but I know from the personal experience I had last night that she does do something that’s really, really good.
The Worst Person In the World
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Wow. Nice to know you are in favor of morality-free and accountability-free government. Which, of course, leave government with no credibility whatsoever. Because it would be haaaaaaaaaarrrrrrd to deal with the obvious crimes surrounding 9/11.
The BJ troll-shouters are the real trolls.
kay
@The Worst Person In the World:
Funnily enough, when I attend a WATER FORUM that environmentalists did all the work to set up as a WATER FORUM for people who are interested in WATER, I expect to talk about water.
So. Your question is: do I (or Marcy Kaptur) have to indulge your every childish, self-centered whim and your “right” to commandeer any topic in any forum, and if I don’t, I’m trampling on your “rights”? Is that about the sum of it?
No. No I don’t. I expect better behavior from a 7 year old, actually.
A public meeting is not all about you. This one was about water. That’s why they set it up, and that’s why I attended. That was true of everyone there. Except for one person, who came to beat his drum and force the rest of us to listen to it.
kay
@The Worst Person In the World:
Why are you more important than everyone else in the room?
If you had done the work to set up a forum on 9-11, I would have skipped your meeting, and done something else. Perhaps I might have attended, oh, I don’t know, a WATER FORUM on that evening. Oh, wait! I DID JUST THAT.
Re-examine the word “rights”. You don’t know what it means. You’re relying on the Tea Party definition.
The Worst Person In the World
@kay:
Sorry not to make my meaning crystal clear for you, little girl. I should have more succinctly written, “Do I have that CORRECT, Kay?”
No, not even close. You used the derogatory term “9/11 Truther” in your post. I asked what you meant by that term, exactly. The idea that it is unreasonable to ask a front pager to define a term they used that is, on its face, meant to disparage and marginalize is…bizarre. Weird that you have a problem with being asked to clarify your own writing.
As for “childish,” please girl. You’re the one playing government/electoral/Dem activist with your notepad and name tag while the elites burn the country down for profit. You’re part of the mighty distraction meant to keep us all occupied with cute little activities that mean nothing: More Dems! Better Dems! All the more effectively to help the Republicans in the big show.
Grow up, missy.
The Worst Person In the World
@kay:
hahaha…says the front page poster guaranteed a spotlight for her cute political activist activities and causes. As if we can trust a government that hasn’t come clean on the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq War deceptions, prosecution of Bush/Cheney administration, Wall Street culpability in the crash of ’08, torture, persecution of government whistleblowers, etc. ad infinitum, to fucking clean up a lake. Was your name tag at the WATER FORUM cool?
You are a naif.
rea
Abandon fiat currency for the asparagus standard! Asparagus has intrinsic value, and people know it has intrinsic value when they hold it in their hands. The price is going up, too.
kay
@The Worst Person In the World:
Why does it make you so angry that 200 people met to talk about a lake?
I mean, they could have taken your advice, and NOT met to clean up a lake, but they decided to go, despite your clear instructions that they were and are wasting their time.
What would be permissible for us to do in the evenings? Something that isn’t a “distraction” from the issues that concern you?
The Worst Person In the World
@kay:
You are, of course, projecting. I’m not the least bit angry. You are though…that someone would call into question your adorable political involvement, which ignores all the core questions of rot and corruption in the U.S. and focuses on cute things like Water cleanup in the great lakes and electing more corrupt democrats to aid and abet republicans.
I am…annoyed, however, that people such as yourself give cover to Obama and other Reagan Democrats. Your political schtick feeds the illusion that D.C. and both parties are not irreparably vile, thus helping to perpetuate the current Obamagarchy. The stock market is performing today an illustrative interpretive dance, acting out the fruits of your president’s strategy of capitulation/collaboration.
Nice job.
The Worst Person In the World
Remember, Kaylet, I simply asked your definition of a term YOU used in your post.
How impertinent of me!
kay
@The Worst Person In the World:
You’re anti-government, mclaren. That’s fine with me. To each his own.
What’s the plan? You’re going to hector me into being anti-government? I’m not a libertarian. I considered it, and rejected it. I went to law school. Law school is like a libertarian paradise. They talk more than anyone else. They dominated. I know more about libertarianism than I ever wanted to know.
You’re absolutely and completely wrong about the federal government’s role in the protection of Lake Erie and watershed, though.
Federal regulation saved the lake. Anti-government libertarians like you didn’t do shit. They would have let it burn. Which is fine, of course. To each his own.
kay
@The Worst Person In the World:
Here’s the history:
Thats, um, actually what happened. Regulation worked! And now here we are, back again.
The Worst Person In the World
@kay:
Your faith in american government is adorable.
kay
@The Worst Person In the World:
Here’s the thing, mclaren. You assume you’re much more sophisticated than me. Much more world-weary and wise. But I think you’re the romantic. I think you’re the one who is naive. I think you’re one walking around feeling betrayed and disillusioned.
That you would think you have to tell me that there is corruption and (gasp!) lawbreaking in government is amusing to me.
Really? Get the fuck out of here! I DID NOT know that! Tell me more, oh wise one!
I never thought that wasn’t so.
That’s not a revelation to me. You’re not telling me something I didn’t know.
I already know all that. Everyone in that room already knew that. They’re doing what they do anyway.
Got it? Now you can stop talking down to us. We know.
Marc
You have the patience of a saint Kay, and it’s wasted on mclaren. Belligerent, arrogant, and ignorant. It’s not just for the Tea Party!
The Worst Person In the World
What’s really extra special adorable is that you guys think I’m Mclaren.
:D
Let me add, Kay, that however much we disagree, your writing style and level of clarity is impressive.