Likelihood of Success

Just don’t say you’re “sick”

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 8, 2008

Some same-sex marriage supporters are urging people to “call in gay” Wednesday to show how much the country relies on gays and lesbians, but others question whether it’s wise to encourage skipping work given the nation’s economic distress. . .

“We want to get the conversation going in the community that gay is not bad,” Craig said. “For kids to hear that in a positive light can be life-changing.”

The irony is that the people who think they’re all about openness, tolerance, understanding, communicating, and open channels utterly don’t get it. As I argued a couple of weeks ago, “we’re” not “anti-gay.” We’re not against them. We don’t remotely think they’re “bad.” We are their friends.

We — people who, for example, may have supported Proposition 8 — just don’t agree with their political agenda, we don’t accept their perspective of how what they want politically is a “right,” and we aren’t prepared to turn over our culture (however much of it “they” are responsible for) to celebration, endorsement or even explicit acceptance of behavior that we believe in good faith is private, but either morally wrong, religiously forbidden or, for many of us, viscerally offensive.

They think we think they’re bad, or that they can’t do their jobs, or that we shouldn’t be friends with them. They think we’re “against” them, but except to the unfortunate extent they have allowed their political goals to be coterminus with their persons, they are the ones who are mistaken.

It seems as if we really aren’t communicating at all. And calling in “gay” isn’t going to start the conversation they want, because that isn’t the conversation anyone needs to have.

Believe me, I’m not obsessed with this topic, but someone is. And that’s the point, too: If you leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone regarding your private lives. Just show up for work like the rest of us, dress as flamboyantly as you like or as straight as you like, and really, we won’t think you’re “bad” or anything.

It’s a lot simpler than you think.

UPDATE: Good sideways elucidation of the issues here, via Mox Ie.

Posted in O Mores!, Oppression, Stragety | 7 Comments »

The enemy of my friend is… hmmm

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 7, 2008

Instapundit links to a chilling report that’s sure to set off even more confusion in left-wing faculty lounges than it is with hormones across the animal kingdom:

IT’S NOT JUST YOUR IMAGINATION: “The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most

The importance of being organic

comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.”

The whole article is pretty stunning if the link between the chemicals and the emasculation phenomenon holds up.

Here’s the question, now: How does a classical wacko lefty — not our normal liberal friends, okay, but the kinds of people who do street theater, comment on Daily Kos and that sort of thing — deal with the policy choices here? Petrochemical and industrial chemical concerns? Environmental effects of modern industry? Threats to species? All bad.

Men and the things that make them men? Uh, also bad, and now, clearly, seen to be worse than ever! Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the male of our species will disappear fast enough by this process to prevent damage to other ones by virtue of all that maleness that just can’t disappear fast enough.

Decisions, decisions.

Posted in Nuvo-Techno, Sisyphus | 5 Comments »

The Freeholder: There is, however, hope

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 7, 2008

The Freeholder argues that conservatives have been wrong to spurn Obama’s message of hope:

When voters in Louisiana, arguably one of the most corrupt states in the union, can vote out a Congressman caught with a freezer full of bribe money, there is hope.

And it only took, what? Three years?

They move real slow down theya, ya know son.

Posted in Americana, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »

Class war in Illinois

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 6, 2008

It’s a brave new world, and their favorite son is not even in office yet:

Which side are you on?

Workers who got three days’ notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won’t go home without assurances they’ll get severance and vacation pay.

About 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind. . . .

“We’re doing something we haven’t done since the 1930s, so we’re trying to make it work,” she said, referring to a tactic most famously used in 1936-37 by General Motors factory workers in Flint, Mich., to help unionize the U.S. auto industry.

Of course in ’36-’37, the country was actually beginning to recover from the double whammy of the Depression and the New Deal policies that deepened it. The unionization of the auto industry probably didn’t help much, but with war in Europe brewing orders were picking up. A year or two later, and the real shooting under way, factory orders were up enough that unionization seemed to work wonders for the economy!

Here in 2008, however, we’re almost certainly not at bottom yet, by a long shot, and no obvious new war is on the horizon, so the timing for union-orchestrated violence — and that is what this is — would appear less than brilliant.

So what is the thinking in the People’s Republic of Illinois? Is organized labor so close to back in the driver’s seat, and the Big Three bailout so close to fruition after all, that a fantasy-based-union-bounty-based economy is upon us? Is it that the era of President-Elect Obama means that Chicago is totally up for leftist power grabs? A little of both? Or was I wrong about the whole “here comes socialism” piece altogether, in a way that — let’s face it — none of us had guessed?

Posted in Gelt, Oppression, Past is prologue, Politics and Poker, Stragety | 12 Comments »

75% Off

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 5, 2008

75% Off

Originally uploaded by Ron Coleman

Hotel souvenir shop in DC a couple of weeks ago.

That’s life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Remember the price signals thingy?

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2008

I do! I was reminded by this post over at Rick Moore’s:

Back when the economic crisis first hit at the end of September, Donald Trump predicted that oil could fall to $20 a barrel. Gulf Oil thinks that’s where it’s headed:

RANDOLPH — Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski said on Wednesday that the price of oil could sink to $20 per barrel, and there is a chance gasoline prices could drop as low as $1 per gallon by early next year. . .

Ah, yep. Sounds really familiar to me, theme-wise. Because here’s what I said in October in response to a surprising policy prescription urged by Glorious Leader:

You thought Instapundit was a libertarian? So did I! At least on economics issues. But check this:

BOB ZUBRIN: Obama’s Energy Plan a Mix of Bad and Good. “Moreover, there is one part of the Obama plan which is absolutely splendid, and that is his explicit promise to require flex fuel capability on all new cars sold in the USA by the end of his first term. This is indeed a potential real game changer, especially if the flex fuel standard is written to include not only automobile compatibility with gasoline and ethanol, but methanol as well.” You can make methanol from kudzu. ‘Nuff said.

Well, not ’nuff for me. What happened to the free market? Is it inconceivable that oil could be $40 a barrel at the end of Obama’s first term — and cars will either be X dollars more expensive because of this requirement, or perhaps won’t work right, or… whatever?

Whatever, indeed. We see how easy it is to fix massive policy problems merely by legislating a solution, right?

Right. Did I say “by the end of Obama’s first term”?

Posted in Futurama, Gelt, Stragety | 2 Comments »