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44940. winstonsmith - 11/5/2012 8:49:39 PM Hey con'd, what part of the country are you in? 10 acres of forested land sounds nice. I was born and raised in one of the most liberal cities on the west coast. Which probably explains my political positions. 44941. winstonsmith - 11/5/2012 8:53:13 PM Actually, they are also plenty of libertarians where I live. Fundamentalist Republicans, not so much. 44942. concerned - 11/5/2012 8:59:24 PM I'm just outside of Cook County in Illinois, 30 miles from the Chicago Loop. If I didn't have an IDNR maintenance plan for the forest, I would be eaten alive by ~$15,000-$20,000/year in real estate taxes. I still pay more in real estate taxes than I'd like. So it is natural that I want to see some serious accountability from public servants, including politicians, something Democrats despise.
In Chicago, it's strictly 'what the market (suckers) will bear', which is why Chicago is losing about 400,000 residents a year which is crippling the tax base which means they are always cutting services and boosting taxes when they think they can get away with it. Such infrastructure breakdowns as yesterday's CTA train derailment are commonplace. Downtown parking is approaching $100/spot in many places and Mayor Daley decided not to run for re-electin partly because he put some ultra expensive parking meters downtown and then sold the rights to a foreign firm, so even in a corrupt burg like Chicago that got the lemmings p'o'd. 44943. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:01:46 PM Oops. 400,000 residents a decade, not year. Typing too fast while I eat lunch... 44944. iiibbb - 11/5/2012 9:01:49 PM Don't get me started about fracking Concerned.
Also, it's not new - that's supposedly it's selling point. It's been around for a long time, which is why those supporting it says it's track record is so "good".
However, I'll put my credentials as a hydrologist and environmental scientist up against just about any politico you care to put in front of me.
The science just isn't there to say it's safe everywhere in every kind of geology. It might work fine in a place like Texasa, but that doesn't mean it's safe in places like the Northeast, which are much wetter. Without proper study there is significant risk to our aquifers.
We can't afford to run out of energy... but we sure as hell can't afford to run out of fresh water and a functioning ecosystem.
Hell, one of my biggest objections to the climate change bru-ha-ha isn't that I don't think it's happening... it's that I think it's distracting us from more pressing potential disasters.
It's one of the main reasons I'm more interested in nuclear as a bridge to developing independent and sustainable energy. 44945. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:03:22 PM So, you see, I've got a 40 year close up look at what 0bama style politics are all about. 44946. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:09:56 PM It's one of the main reasons I'm more interested in nuclear as a bridge to developing independent and sustainable energy.
Basically, I am, too. The idea of electric cars really makes a lot more sense to me with nuclear power generation. As it is, with coal, gas and oil power generation, one is merely transferring the pollution source from the tailpipe to the smokestack.
44947. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:11:57 PM Not that I agree that CO2 is a pollutant. But, it should be obvious by my having a geothermal heatpump at my house that I'm on board with anything that reduces its emission, as long as it doesn't hurt the economy. 44948. winstonsmith - 11/5/2012 9:14:05 PM Con'd, you live in a very blue state. I have lots of relatives in Chicago and go there quite often. Some of them live in Hyde park, a few blocks from Obama's house. I like Chicago despite it's problems. 44949. winstonsmith - 11/5/2012 9:16:59 PM Re:44939. Con'd, who knows, you might end up the only one who voted for the winner. I think Obama will win but if an epic number of republicans show up to the polls, Romney could win. 44950. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:22:41 PM Chicago's ok if you have plenty of money, don't need very much living space, and can walk or take public transportation pretty much everywhere you want to. It's still got some social and night life, but that's steadily draining out to the suburbs. And the air's a lot less polluted where I'm at. 44951. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:27:10 PM Re. 44949 -
My number one concern is by far the economy. If 0bama hadn't done such a terrible job there, I might consider giving a pass on everything else and possibly sit this one out. Thinking of the future here. 44952. winstonsmith - 11/5/2012 9:33:16 PM Gallup has just put up what is probably their final national results after they stopped reporting because of the storm.
O:48
R:49
This represents a 4 point shift toward Obama. 44953. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:34:53 PM Btw, I think it's a travesty how single party (machine) politics displaces informed voting. It always ruins or at least severely damages whatever it touches. 44954. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:35:41 PM If 0bama wins, I hope at least he has a change of heart and starts working for all Americans. 44955. robertjayb - 11/5/2012 9:43:04 PM A cautionary tale for election eve...
Recently longform.org has been a regular
stop in my surfing routine. Last night I came upon a site out of Oklahoma called This Land, a nod to Woody Guthrie, and an article titled "The Strange Loves of Dr. Billy James Hargis." To me it is an amazing piece.
Those of us of a certain age recognize Hargis as an early media evangalist operating "the Christian Crusade" out of Tulsa. His is a familiar story: hardscrabble depression-era upbringing in fundamentalist religion leading to a money-harvesting ministry empire.
It is perhaps because of my familiarity with the events and characters that I find the article so stunning.
It links the Little Rock school closings, the Ku Klux Klan, anti-communism, opposition to Catholics and Jews, Major General Edwin Walker, H.L. Hunt, Senator Joe McCarthy,Robert Welch and the John Birch Society, an early T-Party, the reactionary Morman leader Ezra Taft Benson, the NAACP, Martin Luther King, James Meredith, conservative mail order whiz Richard Viguerie, Lee Harvey Oswald, George Wallace, the Kennedy assassination, and sexual misconduct among the righteous and holy. It is a stew of right-wingers and their antics and echoes of the era can be heard today, loud and clear. Now I'm hoping I can furnish a working link. Don't overlook the footnotes. They are rich.
Hargis
I must admit I don't quite get the title...but from the piece I am reminded that it is not paranoia when the sonsabitches really are out to get you. And they always are. 44956. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:43:37 PM IAC, do you take a chance on having this guy one heartbeat away from the presidency?
Biden told a crowd of 1,200 in Lakewood, Ohio Sunday that a Republican ad claims: “President Clinton bankrupted Chrysler so that Italians could buy it to ship jobs overseas to China.”
44957. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:45:29 PM ok, rjb - let's see some equal time from you for Reverend Wright, et al. 44958. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:46:29 PM 0bama's persoanl influences are guaranteed to be far more cautionary than anybody who votes Republican, given equal exposure. 44959. concerned - 11/5/2012 9:51:03 PM Here we you all preparing to vote for VP Gaffalufagus and you Lefties were all over Sarah Palin for being sooooo stupid that had to make her gaffes up for her? How do you sleep at night?
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