Beavah

Yah, let me try that again: I would think that in order to have a clear conscience yeh would notify your Chartered Organization of the potential problem, share da documents you have been provided here, and ask them to have their legal counsel give yeh a formal legal opinion on the matter, both in terms of tax law and in terms of da statutes on fundraising fraud in your state. In this case, I would think it appropriate notify the IH or da Chartered Organization's business manager type. CORs are scouting liaisons, and often don't have da savvy to deal with this stuff. Like BadenP says, da likelihood is that yeh can fly under the radar, unless yeh happen to be in a town where someone has a burr in his saddle about the Boy Scouts for other reasons, or your CO gets audited for other reasons. Or someone in da press gets wind of da issue, I suppose. I'm just not sure why anybody would, in light of our mission and values.

I don't reckon it'll be a problem, Cambridgeskip. We already know you Europeans area bunch of heathen. Mostly, da U.S. is workin' its way around to a culture of tolerance, but not endorsement. Within da U.S. programs, given what we feel about da importance of Adult Association and mentoring as a Method, openly active homosexuals as leaders feels to too many of us like endorsement. Even da wise Christian folk recognize that this is an area where we are called to evangelize, not to impose by legal stricture. If folks here weren't so obnoxiously divided into competing political camps trying to "win", da natural resolution of the marriage question would be to allow legally equivalent "committed partnerships" (tolerance) but not da word "marriage" (endorsement). But as yeh can see from da media we export to yeh, our civil discourse has broken down to the point of bein' worse than kindergarten without adult supervision. Do yeh have any old-fashioned nannys over there yeh can send us? If could assign a British Nanny to every politician and media personality, maybe it would help. Beavah

I simply do not see the difference on either a legal or moral level and I have a clear conscience about our unit's scout account program. I would think that in order to have a clear conscience yeh would notify your Chartered Organization of the potential problem, share da documents you have been provided here, and ask them to have their legal counsel give yeh a formal legal opinion on the matter, both in terms of tax law and in terms of da statutes on fundraising fraud in your state. A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, and all that stuff. It's your CO that you're representing (and putting at risk) after all. And if yeh truly believe there's no issue, then yeh shouldn't be at all reluctant to confirm that. Beavah

Yah, nugent, keep tryin'. Yeh can substitute in "pedophile" or "drunk" for "African-American" just as easily. Pedophiles and alcoholics could be argued didn't have a choice in their preferences either. How dare we discriminate, yada yada. Word substitution is not a valid or rational argument. [Hatred] is a natural byproduct of a discriminatory policy Nonsense. Those fellows packsaddle talks about would have felt the same way regardless of what da BSA's policy is. Yeh don't honestly believe that they woke up one morning and said "Gee, the Boy Scouts won't allow openly gay leaders, I guess that means I should hate gays" do yeh? Packsaddle, tell us... do those fellows dutifully follow da BSA's position on Leave No Trace? Makes yeh think though. Does an employer's policy of only hiring people with degrees create hatred of people who didn't finish college as a "natural byproduct?" Does a bank's discriminating against those who can't afford a big mortgage naturally produce hatred of poor people? Nah. People claim that those who support an all-inclusive policy are forcing their ideas of morality upon them, yet isn't that the same as those same people stating that others accept the idea that homosexuality is immoral? Nope, not in this case. Yeh have a group of people trying to force a private organization based on religious principles to abandon their position. They're willing to try to cut off funding (public and private) cut off access to public spaces and resources, accuse 'em of spreading hatred, etc. To be "the same", the BSA would have to try to force a private organization like Delta Lambda Phi to abandon their position of supporting gay men and open their doors to da religious right. They'd have to try to cut off DLP's funding, public and private. They'd have to try to cut off DLP's access to public and private colleges, and to employee donation mechanisms. Da BSA would have to accuse 'em of spreading hatred, and try to get local city councils to seize their buildings. But we haven't, eh? All the BSA has said is that this is our position, others may disagree, and we support their right to associate. We just wish they would respect ours as well. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Considering the last election, the democrats should be making the most concessions. Nah, that's not the way it works in da U.S., eh? We stagger elections for a reason. Da Republic was designed deliberately so that the most volatile body (the House) couldn't go off and do things willy-nilly based on a single election. The founders thought that kind of democracy was dangerous. Shame the Tea Partiers never got da memo about understanding and following the Constitution. Besides, if we used "who won da most in the most recent election" as a metric, then the Republicans should have rolled over on every issue after 2006 and 2008. Right now, the Democrats have won enough elections to control the Senate and the Executive, or 2/3 of the bodies required to pass legislation. So they're in the driver's seat, and they should be. Their agenda should be allowed to move forward, with appropriate checks and compromises with da majority party in the House. Despite that, the President offered to cave in, with $4 trillion of cuts including cuts to entitlement programs in exchange for modest tax increases. It was a poor strategic move for Obama, but then he's been a lousy legislative strategist overall. Only da Tea Party Right could possibly have turned that down in favor of a smaller set of unspecified future cuts from a "commission" and da opportunity to cause a default and a credit downgrade. Madness. Beavah

Yah, Scoutfish. These things are called "Unit Custodial Accounts" and any unit can set 'em up with their local council / scout shop. Most units that live within driving range of a scout shop use them as a matter of course in just the way you describe. If yeh file your CO's NFP status with da council/scout shop then dependin' on your state's laws yeh can also avoid sales tax on purchases made through the custodial account. Beavah

Yah, people are mixin' up concepts tryin' desperately to justify a practice that IMHO can't easily be justified. Trails End is a for-profit entity. As such, it doesn't have to worry about da rules for exempt organizations. So no problem with sales incentives. Those things are mostly one-shot and de minimis as described, so they're not a particular issue in terms of individual income reportin' for a youth, falling well below the youth exemption anyways. I can't speak to what any particular council is doin' in terms of sales incentives, but I expect none of 'em are giving individual boys a "cut" of what they sold. Instead they're givin' out some incidental gifts, perhaps direct from local for-profit entities that aren't taking a deduction for the gift. Such a setup would be allowed, of course. Da local business would account it an advertising expense, and probably get a pretty good return on it. Heck, a District Chair could just buy the prizes out of pocket and give 'em to boys. That can be a solution for units that want to give out some incentive, eh? The SM or CC just does it personally out of pocket (with no deduction and no reimbursement from the troop). There's nothing at all wrong with a unit purchasing group gear for use for its exempt purpose. Tents, stoves, packs to be loaned out to any boy that needs one, etc. All of that is just fine. Just like a school purchasing computers that any boy can use. But if the school only allows boys whose dads gave $2,000 to the fundraiser to have access to the school computers, I think we'd all recognize that would be wrong. No difference with only allowing a boy who raised a certain amount to have access to the troop's packs. Again, I'm not sure why folks feel it's necessary to try to justify a practice that is so fundamentally... slimy. If yeh want your boys to learn responsibility by working for money, encourage or require them to go get a job. Mow lawns, rake leaves, deliver newspapers, flip burgers. Don't have 'em beg for personal handouts using Scouting's good name. Da memo from national does an OK job of analyzin' da law, IMHO. Only OK though . They do raise an issue I hadn't considered, and that's da exposure of the local council corporations when units do this, dependin' on how popcorn and other sales monies are handled. That's a big deal, because at that level, the amounts are no longer immaterial and they become a much more reasonable enforcement target than individual units. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

I consider the policy to be exclusive, intolerant, and hateful. Yah, I get exclusive. I'll even allow intolerant, though I think it's stretching da outer limits of honesty. But 'hateful'? Surely folks can be permitted to politely disagree on a longstanding moral issue without being accused of being hateful. There are all kinds of rational responses to nugent's flame, but if yeh support da flaming then odds are yeh aren't goin' to see the rationality of an alternative view. Perhaps those of us who are Believers just don't want adult leaders who espouse a position of calling da moral views of the vast majority of the world's religious people "hateful". We don't think that makes for a good example for children. Beavah

Yah, anybody in Florida know the origin of da money for this grant? Seems like it's either a state appropriation or somethin' that ultimately originates with private donors. Boards are free to do as they see fit and should reflect da values of their community. If they want to turn down free money for science education because it comes from AAAS and AAAS believes in evolution and global warming, that's OK. Da local taxpayers just have to pay more for a weaker program. Same here. B

Yeh know, the dumb Democrats make the same sort of argument you just made. If we tax luxury goods, it will only affect the rich and we'll get more revenues. It sounds reasonable, eh? Nobody has sympathy for da fellow who buys 12 private airplanes, and they cost a lot so revenues should be high. Makes a great sound bite, and there are Democrats who would say "In short, I think that's on the right track.". Da truth is, though, that when yeh tax luxury goods yeh put ds regular people who build those goods out of work, and yeh actually can reduce tax revenues. Da real world doesn't work like the sound bite or "common sense" suggests. You're doin' exactly the same thing. Research and infrastructure investment lead to economic growth, which in turn leads to more jobs and more tax revenue and therefore lower deficits. Think GPS or da federal highway system. Big government projects invested in infrastructure. They generated many, many times their original cost in economic growth and resultant tax revenue. Long term, they reduced the net debt. So except when interest rates are high, yeh should invest in such things. When interest rates are effectively negative, yeh should go hog wild investing in such things because it's the best possible way to lower the long term structural deficit. If yeh really care about the debt, and the country, that's what yeh have to do. But it's da wrong choice if all yeh care about is scoring political points for your team. Beavah

Yep, SP, I can agree with most of that, eh? Bubbles happen because of greed and abusive speculation, aided by structural economic or policy features. College costs risin' at many times da inflation rate supported by government guaranteed lending might well fit da bill, especially when yeh factor in da emergence of for-profit providers (da surest sign of a bubble is when yeh get lots of people making money on stuff that never worked before and is generally a low-quality product. Like derivatives on sub-prime loans). I can even see da point with a concern with da government not being responsible about scaling back future spending as the economy recovers. We all know that all politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, are addicted to their earmarks and beholden to their lobbyists. What doesn't make any sense to me is choosing to be completely irresponsible now just because yeh worry we might be irresponsible later. Especially when being irresponsible now makes da situation later worse. It's like saying that there might be a hurricane in a few years so we're goin' to shut down the business and board up the windows now. Not understanding good business decisions and expecting da government to be "magical" is Democrat-style thinking, and that's what you're doin'. It doesn't work that way. There's no magic, either for cutting or spending. Just good business decisions. And good business decisions depend on timing. Beavah

Unfortunately, a good many young college students may not be especially wise in imagining a career and profession for themselves. Yah, so? Da government and da governor of da state of Florida should decide for them? Or should mandate what kind of car they drive or what kind of career they choose? Yep, yeh really are one of them socialist liberal types. Beavah

Heh, heh! I'm sure you will find many Democrats willing to support your plan of more spending now. Yah, sure. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But yeh do point out da fundamental problem. This isn't a football game. Despite what da politicians do, it's not about "keeping score" or "scoring points" against da Democrats. It's about being a patriot and doin' what's right for the country. If the other side has a point, that's a good thing, even if they don't have da right reason for it. It makes 'em more willing to work with yeh and accept cuts to the programs they defend, like SS and Medicare. The TP'ers were so busy "scoring points" this summer that they missed a fantastic opportunity to advance 90% of their agenda and do right by the country. That's why they're unfit to govern. As for da rest of it, you've been da victim of a political campaign that took a few true facts and then misled yeh with those sound bites. It's true, long-term structural deficits pose an eventual risk of investors demanding higher yields on our bonds. But that's not true right now. Right now, the demand for our bonds is so high that our yields are at record lows. It's like saying "long term, mortgage interest rates are going to go way up" and therefore refusing to take out a fixed-rate 30 year mortgage right now at 1%. It's stupid as a business decision. In fact, da more yeh refinance now or borrow to invest now, the less risk you'll have long term. You're right, that in an ordinary business cycle, more spending by private and public entities can reduce labor supply and lead to wage and price inflation. But does it seem to you like we're at risk of havin' a labor shortage at da moment? Where you're wrong is that this isn't an ordinary business cycle. Da fed has held zero percent interest rates and has pumped money into the economy by the lakeful, and inflation has gone... up a percent, and as you mention only through commodity speculation. Da banks, rather than loaning to businesses to grow jobs have been gambling in da commodities market. That's not real inflation, that's bubble-ville. That's why government spending on infrastructure investment is vastly better than monetary policy action by da Federal Reserve. It actually employs private industry, puts people to work, encourages private investment. Fed monetary policy just dumps dollars into the big banks, where da risks are higher and the returns are lower. A sound conservative would rather see infrastructure investment in da private economy than da jiggering of monetary policy. You're right, da stimulus bill was Democrat inspired, and it therefore was poorly targeted toward government stuff. It managed to keep da state and local governments from massive cuts and layoffs for two years, which helped, but not as much as it could have. But we got hit with a $2.8 trillion depression and we threw $800 billion at it. We still took a $1.5 trillion wallop (dependin' on how yeh count TARP). And as a result we're still in what is really a depression, Japanese-style. Yeh don't cut spending in a depression, it's self-destructive. So yah, there's some truth to what yeh say. That's da way politicians lie to yeh. They tell yeh some truth, and then yeh buy all da rest of their nonsense because yeh don't do your homework. For the near-term, there can be no "collapse" of the American dollar, because there is no alternative. Do yeh think people are goin' to go running to the Euro? To the rupee? Some inflation is a good thing, because it reflects our real economic condition and would enhance American manufacturing competitiveness, working to reduce unemployment. There's a reason why China deliberately inflates its currency, eh? It builds manufacturing base through exports, putting people to work and keeping its economy growing. That's somethin' yeh oppose? So stop tryin' to score points, and think about da country rather than the party. And more importantly, stop listening to politician and lobby sound bites like a lazy democrat. Be a real conservative and do your bloody homework. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

The fact is we crank out far too many of those folks, and dump them into an economic system which makes it tough for them to find a job and may doom them to unemployment or low wage jobs unless they abandon the field they have been trained in. Yah, there goes SeattlePioneer da closet liberal (aka "modern" conservative) again. Has to have the government regulate and limit da choices of the people, because the government always knows better than the market and the citizens. Can't trust da people with freedom. We conservatives know better. We'd like to see vouchers so that kids and their families have choice in education, and can find schools and programs that are a good fit for them, not be locked into government education dictated by a parade of ill-informed politicians each pushin' their own agenda on our young people. Beavah

In all practical ways you are making the arguments of liberals and Democrats. I'm not interested in what you may label yourself. Nah, I'm just not agreein' with da arguments of Tea Partiers. There's a difference. If you've watched my postings, I also haven't agreed with da arguments of Democrats, as Calico and NJ have yelled at me on many an occasion. It's only the "modern" Tea-Party right that wants to label anybody who disagrees with 'em on any point as a Democrat and a Liberal. Good way to shrink da party in the long run. Right. You don't make cuts during recessions when you don't have the tax revenue, and you don't make cuts in good economic times because additional spending is popular and you can afford it then. That's why we are in trouble. Did yeh read what I wrote? I said yeh don't pass up borrowing at negative interest rates and spendin' the money on infrastructure that leads to economic growth. And yeh don't announce unspecified but enormous cuts because that's irresponsible. I also said that yeh can make prudent long-term adjustments to entitlement programs now, and we should. That sort of "cut" doesn't affect the current condition and increases confidence and stability for da longer term. And I fully advocated for both increased taxes and decreased spending as the economy recovered. But yeh see, rather than listen carefully to fellow Americans, the "us" vs. "them" thing means yeh hear what yeh want to hear once you've identified even a conservative fellow American as "them." The Tea Party has made the point that spending needs to be cut now, regardless of counter arguments. And in that they are morons who never learned enough about business and economics to be trusted with an allowance. Sorry, that's just da truth of the matter. Same as believing that yeh can balance da budget just by cuts in discretionary programs. It makes a point about ignorance, but not about good economic policy. Ahh yes --- anti-intellectualism. That means that Republicans are attracting a lower middle class and working class base that doesn't appeal to your intellectual biases. Yup. That's what I mean by anti-intellectualism. People who think having knowledge is a class-based bias to be avoided instead of somethin' that people of every walk of life should work hard to obtain. Only you liberals resort to that tiresome class-warfare nonsense. We conservatives believe everybody can work hard and study hard and learn things. And yah, sure, we tend to fault people who are too lazy to do the work to understand somethin' and instead just take the dole from special interest lobbyists and bloggers. Beavah

Since we are convinced that advancement is one of the key contributors to retention, then we should expect that units would consider it when planning program. Yah, this is da fundamental error that we made back in 1990, eh? Confusin' correlation with causation. You'd think after 20 years of declining membership through FCFY and kids learnin' statistics earlier in school that someone by now would have figured it out. Nope. We're still makin' da same mistake. Which really makes more sense? Advancement causes retention... Or retention leads to advancement? Does focusing on advancement really cause kids to stick around? In that case, we should create 12 ranks instead of 6, and hand out patches as fast as we can. Or does havin' a good program cause kids to stick around and engage more deeply, and kids who stick around and engage more deeply also advance? If the latter is true, we shouldn't be worried a lick about the pace of advancement, we should instead be lookin' at the depth of the program. This sort of error happens because da national folks get driven by "numbers" in odd ways. They have advancement reports, not reports of unit activity level, quality, variety, youth satisfaction, etc. And so they latch on to da numbers they have and come to conclusions that nobody workin' with kids would ever accept as bein' sensible. It's like da No Child Left Behind thing. Test scores are a measure of learning, sure, but just focusin' on improvin' da test score doesn't get yeh a thing. Da easiest way to improve the test score is to dumb down the test, cheat, or teach to the test. None of those things improve learning. Same with advancement. Far better if national would start emphasizing patrol method, number of outings per year, and variety and quality of outings. For troop Journey to Excellence Bronze level, yeh have to do at least one backpack trip during the year, hiking and camping by patrol along different routes; one water trip a year, paddling or sailing in patrol groups for at least two consecutive days; and one deep-winter outdoors campout, again by patrol and a goodly ways away from da cars. For silver level, even more, includin' a bike trek and a shooting sports day or what have yeh. That would push program, and push councils and districts into supportin' a variety of program opportunities and resources to help troops that can't put such things together on their own. You'd see retention, and gradual, at-their-own-pace, fun advancement to boot. Beavah

Not sure where packsaddle is comin' down on this, since he's a science fellow. Happy to see his colleagues in da social sciences get the gubernatorial shaft? I think there are some mostly wasted departments at some large state universities, and some mostly wasted non-major fluff classes even in good departments. A little bit of pruning or insisting on intellectual rigor might be appropriate. It's just a bit ironic to be completely dissin' the liberal arts the week that the most successful CEO in the world (in terms of shareholder value gains during his tenure) is memorialized for explaining that he was successful because of his liberal arts background and ability to combine computer technology with the liberal arts to produce human-friendly design. Somehow, I reckon I'll take Steve Jobs word on the matter over a fellow who wasn't nearly as successful in business. B

Yah, vol_scouter, I'm with yeh. Social Security needs to be restructured to reflect today's lifespans and the aging demographic. Medicare (and indeed da health care system more generally) needs to be overhauled in a thoughtful way. Defense needs to be judiciously pruned. And there has to be reasonable increases on da revenue side. Expire the Bush tax cuts and then jigger 'em a bit to keep the bits that still make sense, but then add da gas tax from Simpson-Boles with a gradual increase provision. Along the way I'd drop the CAFE nonsense if I could; it's silly to tell the car makers what to build, yeh just increase the gas cost and the market will work it out. Maybe people still want big cars but will move closer to work. But there is an issue with timing and confidence. Timing, in that yeh don't make big cuts when interest rates are at record lows and so many people are unemployed. That's just idiotic. All it does is reduce your revenues more than what you cut, by further slowing a weak economy. Confidence is yeh don't make cuts by announcing cuts and leave it to a commission to decide down the road what they will be. That kind of uncertainty means that anybody with a brain stops investing and holds cash, waiting to see where the hammer is goin' to fall. So again, it just tanks the markets, reducing jobs and revenues and increasing deficits. Idiotic. Yeh borrow money when interest rates are at historic lows, and invest in research, energy and transportation infrastructure, and other areas that will employ people, encourage private investment in parallel, and lead to long-term economic growth. We should be borrowin' like mad right now ... not for entitlements, but for real projects. And at da same time dealin' with SS and Medicare. Those are things that the Tea Party haven't really made any gains on at all, because adjusting entitlements takes being responsible and buildin' relationships and workin' with other people. Down the road, as unemployment drops and confidence builds, then yeh phase in da tax increases and cuts to balance da budget as interest rates rise. By fixating on no taxes and cuts and deficits at this time, and doin' so so belligerently that they've created market uncertainty and an inability to work with da other side, they have fundamentally harmed the nation... and increased deficits in da process. Just foolishness. And then to make matters worse, they've supported da banking lobby in resisting prudent regulation, and so have increased da likelihood of needing a second bank bailout. Madness! Yah, yah, many of 'em are well-meaning folks with their hearts in da right place, but they're absolutely being manipulated by others because they're not thinkin' through the problem. Yeh can't solve da economy with a "spending cuts" sound bite. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, yeh keep gettin' it wrong, SeattlePioneer. I was a Reagan Republican. Voted for the Gipper in both elections, GHWB in both elections, Dole and (God help me) GWB in 2000. In fact, my votin' record is strongly Republican, especially on da national level. (Locally I just vote for competence, which doesn't seem to correlate at all to party). That's what da modern Republicans/pseudo-conservatives don't seem to get, eh? In an effort to appease their whacky "base", they've alienated and driven away a good chunk of da rest of us folks who were long-time supporters and who actually decide elections in areas where da districts haven't been completely gerrymandered. They just can't understand that da world is not "us vs. them" and anybody who doesn't agree with the latest ideological policy decision must be "them". I don't consider myself a Republican anymore, partly for that reason, and partly because they've become the party of anti-intellectualism and fear. I find da behavior of too many of 'em lacking in honor. But I'm certainly not a Democrat. Beavah

this is how the military does it, with (I think) the only exception for women who are pregnant. Not da USCG as someone recently pointed out, eh? Their new ODU is worn untucked, and da tucked in alternative will be phased out next year and become unauthorized. Da new ASU for da Army also mandates untucked female blouses, I believe. B(This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, a quick perusal of similar high quality news outlets tells me that Elvis is living on da South Pole and had a secret contract with Disney for helpin' with "Happy Feet", and Bob Mazzuca isn't overweight, he's secretly pregnant with Richard B. and Jennifer Lopez's surrogate love child. Does anybody really read these things for anything other than da sheer comedy? They're better than The Onion. Beavah

Yah, hmmm.... Just came across this one under 3.0.0.3 Unit Advancement Responsibilities: 7. Establish practices that will bring each new Boy Scout to First Class rank within a year of joining, and then to Star rank the following year. Really? Now yeh all know I've been skeptical of da First-Class-in-a-year thing since we first introduced it in 1990. But now it's not just that units should have a program that could bring an active lad to First Class in a year. It's that units have a responsibility to bring each new boy to First Class in a Year, and then to Star in year 2??? Where'd this come from? That's a pretty huge program change to be slipped in on da sly like that. Beavah

Yah, hmmm.... Gotta agree with TwoCubDad here. This section needed another round of editing. Yeh can certainly see a whole group of people readin' it just the way moosetracker is readin' it, and that really does seem to be what it says, even though I don't think it's what they intended. Leadership is havin' two other people around. No time requirements. No common standards allowed. There are references to "impact" and "complexity" and tailoring a project to a boy, but they're followed almost immediately by stronger language saying that holding boys to standards is not allowed. Seems like they were tryin' for balance, but got a bit too caught up in thinkin' about the district boards that go hog-wild for demandin' 50-page detailed reports without also considerin' the ones that roll over and allow a high school valedictorian to retire a few flags. Beavah

Yah, it's true, eh? Da demographic of the Tea Party movement (and da Fox network) is Grandma. Old folks, like me. And like many of da elderly, they got duped into votin' against their own interest, as they discovered when Representative Ryan and the Tea Party Congress proposed dismantling Medicare. And then Grandma made a stink to them, too. So functionally, I think da Tea Party have long since abandoned their roots in Ron Paul's fiscally conservative libertarianism. Instead, they're a populist movement of old, white, rural folks who are being manipulated by a savvy media message of fear. Quite sad, really. A bit like da folks who prey on us old folks financially in other ways. Lots of advertising buzzwords, but no substance. And yah, advertising buzzwords and fear can win yeh an election, sure. They just aren't much use when it comes to governing effectively. So yeh get tom-fool populists who would rather push da government into default than work with fellow Americans to do what's best for the nation. In that way, they resemble da populists that might come out of the OWS stuff. Mind yeh, the OWS folks are more likely to be young and more urban/suburban in demographic, and the Gospel of Fear doesn't play as well with that crowd as the da Robin Hood theme. And young folks act differently, eh? More likely to become physically violent, perhaps. Much less likely to be racist in their overtones, though, and a bit less likely to be just plain rude in the way that some of the TP'ers have been at public events where they were guests. Remember da town halls? More likely to wear funny clothes and look like bums, though. Problem is, da Tea Partiers in some way have a reason to be fearful. Their demographic and way of life is goin' away. Not because of the "government" or da "liberals", but because of more ordinary changes in economics. America has become an urban country, with a big automated farm out back. I read that even da majority of Nebraskans now live in the urban areas around Lincoln and Omaha. That rural, self-sufficient, free to pollute, pay-your-local-physician-in-cash, ethnically homogeneous, god-fearin' protestant lifestyle is never coming back. As climate change continues, da droughts are goin' to hammer it even harder. I reckon in a lot of ways that's sad, but I don't tend to over-romanticize it. So yeh can understand where it's comin' from, eh? And sympathize, even though yeh know that it's doomed in the long run and da only question is how much damage they'll do to what they love on the way out. Yah, sure, and da problem is da OWS folks have similar complaints, eh? Their way of life as urban, working middle class and unionized labor is goin' away. Not because of "corporations" or "conservatives" but because of more ordinary changes in economics. America has become a high-end, automated manufacturer with a centralized billing and distribution system. We no longer need legions of unskilled workers operatin' bolt guns, and increasingly care less and less about maintaining a lot of local shops and shop-owners when we can get what we want online, delivered to our doorstep for less money. That urban, hard-workin, get-good-benefits-from-your-union, work-for-da-government-for-stability lifestyle is never coming back. So when they see da "suits" not just rakin' in more money than ever while they lose their jobs, but gambling and being irresponsible and getting bailed out even while they pay lower taxes than ever to support da teachers and bus drivers and cops and firemen, yeh can understand where they're comin' from, eh? And sympathize, even though yeh know that unionized labor is doomed in the long run and da only question is how much damage they'll do to what they love on the way out. Too many folks fightin' to preserve da old. Tea Party, unions, record companies, oil companies, politicians and lobbies. In da end it never works, though it can cripple yeh for a while. Leadership involves doin' the Steve Jobs thing and embracing the new, even though it's goin' to fundamentally change things. Not with fear, and not without a touch of nostalgia for what was either. But with hope, and spirit, and a willingness to work together to do it right. Beavah

Mmmmm... Liberals. Tender and juicy. I agree with BadenP and packsaddle though. We're about to get clobbered as Europe comes apart. Nobody knows what da overall exposure is to Greek sovereign debt and to banks holding Greek sovereign debt. Maybe it'll go down hard, maybe Europe will get it together and engineer a mammoth bailout. Any way yeh cut it, in da short term the uncertainty is almost sure to tank the markets and trash the economy. And there is no plan. Or rather, the plan is to pile onto the economic downturn with unspecified spending cuts, so as to maximize da market uncertainty and damage. B