Fracking: letter to fracking supporter Joe Nocera (NY Times)

Dear Joe,

I wish the actual fracking (and insurance) industry was as confident as you about the safety of the technology.

Thanks to the ex-CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney, the fracking industry got an exemption from The Clean Water Act.  If frackers are genuinely positive that fracking does not harm water, why did they prioritize pushing for the exemption?

And, if the technology is not of significant risk to the environment, why are the private sector's professional risk assessors -- the insurance (and mortgage) industry -- backing away from taking financial responsibility for land with gas leases?

There is the battle of talking points -- and then there is the reality:  if fracking can be done safely and responsibly, why hasn't the industry put its money where YOUR mouth is?

Ross Douthat on Ike....

Sunday's NYT allows Republican team player Ross Douthat to extol the virtues of a Republican "hero" who, in today's GOP, would be excoriated as a RINO  (Republican in name only).   Check it out http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-greatness-of-ike.html?_r=1&hp

As a General, Eisenhower had the diplomatic skills to handle the  "multi-lateralist" military approach that is so abhorred by the "modern" GOP.

When confronted by Sputnik, Ike engaged the power of the central government in supporting federal science and language educational programs as a matter of national security -- something also abhorred by current GOP dogmatists and theocrats who hold that policies not based on The Bible are, somehow, undermining our future.

But, of course, General Ike notably had the stomach to beat the Nazis, but no stomach to confront Joe McCarthy or "the military-industrial complex" he mentioned in a farewell speech -- the arrangement that is so loved by on-the-take GOP Chicken Hawks and the temporarily silent "Neo-Cons."

Ross's bloviations (and memories) about war have been wrong for ten years, from his opening enthusiasm for the Bush/Cheney/Rove Iraq War to his lack of enthusiasm for Obama's methodology with Libya (something a cautious President Eisenhower might have supported).

Douthat is a team player whose convenient memory of Ike is as fictional as current Republicans' memories of Reagan.

Church Lady : " Well, isn't HE special"

Santorum simultaneously claims that Barack Obama's policies are both "anachronistic" and "phony" because they're not based on The Bible.

This is proof that, at least in the Virtual Republican Reality Distortion Field (as reported and supported by the Fox News Occupy Nut Street Movement),   when matter and anti-matter meet, they only annihilate the calendar, the Scientific Method .... and condoms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/us/politics/santorum-criticizes-education-system-and-obama.html

To start...."The Free Market has Spoken"

Republican POTUS George Bush started his first term in 2001 with the Dow at 12,000.  He left office 8 years later with the Dow at 8,000.

"Socialist" (Fox News) POTUS Obama came into office with the Dow at 8,000 and, in less than one term, the Dow is approaching 13,000.

The business/financial community has spoken -- they are pretty excited about "Socialism."