Shh...Don't Tell Anyone, But Elton John is a Closet...

Traditionally, coming out of the closet was an extreme risk that gay people took.  People (primarily men) didn't take that risk before the '70's.  Famous Hollywood actor Rock Hudson was a big sex symbol (for women) in the '50's.  He never came out but was more or less outed in the '70's and died of AIDS in the '80's.  The great classical pianist and showman  Liberace, as over the top flamboyant as anyone, never admitted his homosexuality, and in fact, denied it to the end.  He died of AIDS in the '80's.

Elton John rose to fame in the early '70's during the time of Glam Rock.  Though not one of my top favorites, his music is certainly key to any soundtrack of the '70's.  Elton was not Glam Rock, but the flamboyance in rock at that time allowed him to dress that way without raising eyebrows (interesting aside, none of the true Glam Rockers I can think of were actually gay, and in fact the most famous Glam Rocker, David Bowie, dated, married, and fathered children with numerous supermodels.  Go ahead, click the link -and crank it- believe it or not, not gay).
Anyway, by the mid-70's, Glam Rock was dying, but Elton's flamboyance continued to grow.  By about that time, it was starting to be accepted that numerous people in show-business were gay, and that that was, OK.  I guess The Village People helped make that happen during the Disco era of the mid-to-late '70's.  Anyway, though Elton didn't admit it, he didn't go out of his way to deny he was gay, and it didn't effect his popularity, especially and even with women, at all.  According to Wikipedia,

John married German recording engineer Renate Blauel on Valentine's Day, 1984, in Sydney, with some speculation that the marriage was a cover; when they divorced four years later John told Rolling Stone that he was "comfortable" being gay

Anyway, Elton married some guy after that and has continued to be a respected, popular performer, and of course by the late-80's it practically became a bragging point to be gay in showbiz.

Now, in the decadent 21st century, we can have senior politicians, such as Barney Frank, who flaunt their gayness, and have partners who run male-prostitution rings out of their apartments with no detrimental effect to their ability to be re-elected.  This is not 100% true of course.  Idaho did reject Larry 'wide-stance' Craig, after he was busted for sex in the men's room at an airport a few years ago.  But he was a Republican politician, not a Democrat.  If he'd been a Democrat, no one would have batted an eye.

Well, I'm wandering off-topic.  Our society has 'progressed' to the point that being gay is no real detriment to doing anything in this country anymore, including having a career in the military.  Being in the closet for being gay is pretty much passe.

Homosexuals have traditionally, and continue to vote Democrat, along with blacks and other perceived minorities, because culture, ie The Man, has been sticking it to them throughout history and the Democratic Party is the party of downtrodden whiners who need the government to remedy their existential failure.  Nowadays, it takes more guts to admit you're a Conservative than to admit you're gay.  If you're a perceived minority, be it black, or hispanic, or a woman, or gay, or..., to admit you are a Conservative is risking, as Monty Python says, social death.  You're labelled an Uncle Tom or a sellout for your minority's assumed cause.

Well, one famous member of one perceived minority is not coming out of the closet, but is acting a whole lot like he may be an in-the-closet Conservative:

• Elton John plays at Rush Limbaugh's wedding and we learn

“What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage… I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership… You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.” – Elton John

Which, as the Big Hollywood article says, is the same view Rush Limbaugh has on gay marriage, and maybe the same view a majority of Americans has.  Then,

• Elton John performs in Israel and slams artists who boycott:

Refusing to bow to the pressure of anti-Israel activists, Sir Elton John arrived in Israel on Thursday and performed in front of tens of thousands of Israelis at the Ramat Gan stadium.

and finally

• Elton John slams Boycott of Arizona:

According to the Arizona Daily Star, he told the crowd, "We are all very pleased to be playing in Arizona. I have read that some of the artists won't come here. They are (expletive)wits! Let's face it: I still play in California, and as a gay man I have no legal rights whatsoever. So what's the (expletive) with these people?"

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/articles/2010/07/27/20100727elton-john-slams-arizona-boycotts.html#ixzz0vEXSoJgS

Columnist and talk show host Debbie Schlussel comments:

Over the past several months, the man has really earned my respect. He’s shown courage and intestinal fortitude, first by refusing to get involved in the gay marriage issue in California (which is especially brave since he is openly gay and in a longtime gay relationship), then by refusing to boycott Israel and dissing those who do, and, now, by refusing to boycott Arizona and dissing the showbiz types who are doing that. (That’s not to mention his performance at Rush Limbaugh’s recent wedding. Reports say he got a cool mill for that one.)

I agree.  Maybe it's the don't-give-a-shit-what-people-think attitude of older age, or maybe he's always felt this way but never been 'out' about it.  Dunno, but he is taking courageous stands in these dark times.

A good article for those who aspire to work in government and why the two political parties are the same.

(I am not going to do a long or well put together post on this topic as it is very broad and could be tied into the "Stupid Frenchman's" book "Democracy in America" and other books. A proper post on this topic would be too long and would not be read.) This is a good post to follow the previous post about Scott Brown voting on more than one occasion with the Democrats and goes into why the Republican party is not different than the Democrat party as the two parties are the same at the core. I got this article off of Rush Limbaugh dot com. This article is six pages long, but is worth the read if you have time. The title is "America's Ruling Class" or aristocracy. The article shows how America is ruled by a small ruling class who look down upon the average American with disdain and whose power and wealth depends on an every increasing government, "Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust.[...]Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed." This ruling class gets in its position not by merit or ability but by who they know and being part of the "in crowd".

"Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the 'in' language -- serves as a badge of identity."

On your retirement accounts that some of us are saving for in hopes of living a well-to-do retirement--our generation will not be able to retire, the ruling class has and is floating the ideal of taking that over, "Similarly, in 2008 the House Ways and Means Committee began considering a plan to force citizens who own Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to transfer those funds into government-run 'guaranteed retirement accounts.'"

A good article that will help one understand what is wrong with America and where America is headed.

Scott Brown Leads New England Republicans Support of Financial Regulation Bill

No beating about the bush: Scott Brown led the defection of the New England Republican Senators: himself and the Maine sisters, from the solid Republican ranks in support of the worthless Financial Regulation bill passed today.  The blog Legal Insurrection, written by a Cornell Law professor, is a very good conservative blog.  The professor, William Jacobson, was a very strong supporter of his campaign. Jacobson doesn't run and hide about it:

When Brown announced that he would support the legislation, his press release stated in part as follows:


While it isn’t perfect, I expect to support the bill when it comes up for a vote. It includes safeguards to help prevent another financial meltdown, ensures that consumers are protected, and it is paid for without new taxes. That doesn’t mean our work is done. Further reforms are still needed to address the government’s role in the financial crisis, including significant changes to the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operate.”

Reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac never is going to happen unless Democrats have no other choice. Not at least as long as Barack Obama is President or Democrats control all or part of Congress. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are off limits for Democrats, just as they were when the the Bush administration warned of problems.


By supporting legislation without including reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Brown lost leverage to address the root of the problem, and squandered his 41st vote.

Jacobson gets it right of course.  This was a ridiculous bill to support as it still doesn't address the real problem.  Jacobson continues with a lot of good analysis on why the bill is a bad thing.  But, he finishes with this:

I'm not going to engage in the name calling some have directed at Brown. I believe Brown was sincere in his belief that the legislation does more good than bad. And I'm still glad that I supported his campaign, because Brown stood firm on health care and other negative Democratic initiatives.

But Scott Brown failed to see the forest for the trees on financial reform.

Whatever good the financial legislation accomplishes could have been accomplished without another impenetrable behemoth, sprinkled with lobbyist-induced goodies, which expands government for the sake of expanding government, and which constitutes a cure which is worse than the disease.

Like Jacobson, and I'm sure at least most of RTP&GG, I'm upset with Brown. Not only did he vote the wrong way, but he actually led the two other Republicans into voting with the Democrats. However, also like Jacobson, I am still not upset with Brown's victory for Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat. That's the best we can do in that part of the world. We'll have to deal with this kind of thing if Republicans are going to become the majority party again. That's the important thing. Well there are two things. The Republicans need to take control of the houses, and then have a majority of  fiscal conservatives to get the job done that needs doing: shrinking our bloated Federal government.  They can't, as an entire party, be the Democrat-lite party they were during the Bush administration.  But there will be various shades of Republicans.

Angela Merkel - Bankroller of the EU

OK, not sure that the bankroller of the free world should be showing that much cleavage, uhm,  dunno, maybe it gets the perverted old Greek Prime Minister to agree to what she says.

Anyway, Der Spiegel has a very interesting article, showing the German perspective of what is going on in the EU.  At times, it makes you think that the EU will probably spin apart, at other times, it makes you think that, as Melkor thinks, that the EU and the IMF are doing their best to hold everything together and control everything. 

The first paragraph reads like something straight out of a Jeff or Melkor World Domination prediction:

Fearing a lasting burden on taxpayers, the German government is preparing a set of insolvency rules for countries in the euro zone. It would require private investors to bear some of the financial burden and force the affected countries to give up some sovereignty.

But, notice that she's making this proposal because her constituents, the German voters, are pissed off about funding the EU's basket-case economies. So that one paragraph seems to both back-up the World Domination cheerleaders and the local government cheerleader (that would be me).

The whole article is fascinating because it's dealing with things we talk about so much here, not particularly from the perspective of any of us.  More:

The effort is necessary, because important safety measures to protect the common currency are not working. The Stability and Growth Pact, which was intended to nip excessive government borrowing in the bud, proved to be largely worthless. Some of the monetary union's ironclad principles were ignored, including a rule that prohibits member states from coming to the aid of others in financial difficulties. It was only with political tricks of questionable legitimacy that the euro-zone countries managed to ward off the crisis in the short term, but by no means has it been overcome. German taxpayers, in particular, could face enormous burdens if the current measures fail. Under the provisions of the bailout package, Germany has pledged up to €170 billion.

I skipped over the part of where Merkel and her Finance Minister have worked so hard to put together a package, that France can go along with, that sets up new rules for how to manage the crisis and not screw over the German taxpayer. The above paragraph shows that one country in particular is carrying the weight of Europe, and that the rules that were laid down by the international authority were ignored by some member states.

The article is goes into great detail explaining everything that is going on, including the creation of a "Berlin Club" of donor nations. Summary paragraphs:

The concept by no means sells itself. If the project were organized under the auspices of the EU, it would face a high hurdle: The European treaties would have to be amended to establish the Berlin Club, which would require the consent of each individual member. This is not a process governments are keen to repeat after the experiences of the Lisbon Treaty.

Nevertheless, there is no way around pushing ahead with emergency planning, because the situation could come to a head more quickly than anticipated. The aid for Greece is subject to the Papandreou government fulfilling the EU and IMF requirements. The Greek prime minister is full of good intentions, but his measures have been relatively ineffective so far. Although the government is raising taxes and even introducing new taxes, revenues have fallen short of expectations. Strikes, like the one that was staged last Thursday, are constantly paralyzing public life and the economy.

In other words, it is quite possible that Greece will not fulfill the conditions and thus will receive no aid from the European fund. This could lead to a consequence that European leaders have been trying to prevent at all costs: a total national bankruptcy. And, if the reform package has not been implemented by then, it could end up being anything but an orderly process.

What do you guys think?

Accurate Billboard Removed

This billboard was removed from an Iowa city this month. The Northern Iowa Tea Party put it up. There was public outcry saying that it shouldnt compare Hitler. I think the billboard is fairly accurate. I have no problem with it. What do RTP's think? Mean or accurate? Or both?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_iowa_obama_billboard
This is the article that I found it on.

What's Going on in Oregon?!

Chris Dudley was a not bad backup center for the Portland Trailblazers from 1994-1997 and in the 2002-2003 season.  He has an NBA record!:

In 1990, Dudley missed 13 consecutive free throws, setting an NBA record

He also was awarded USA Today's 1997 'Most Caring Athlete' award. A good guy. Unlike most NBA players, he actually graduated before going pro, earning Bachelors in Political Science and Economics from Yale in 1987.

He retired from the NBA after the 2002-2003 season and lives in Lake Oswego, OR.  Read the Wikipedia link for more details concerning his life in Oregon after NBA retirement.

So, why should RTP&GG care?  Because earlier this year, he won the Republican nomination to run for Governor of the State of Oregon.  He beat a crowded field of so-so Republicans.  He doesn't have any significant executive or government experience.  My initial reaction was to sigh and say "what a sorry state Republicans are in, in Oregon".  The Democrats nominated popular two-term governor John Kitzhaber, who was governor before our current Democrat (and ex-Marine) Ted Kulongoski.   Kitzhaber was term-limited, but now is eligible to serve again.  Both Democratic governors have done their damnedest to increase the power of public employees unions in their tenures, and have been pretty successful at it.  I figured that, in now heavily Democratic and tax-loving Oregon, newbie Dudley wouldn't have a chance.  He doesn't even have that much name recognition as a Blazer, let alone a politician. 

But surprisingly, in all three polls published this year, Dudley has come out ahead of Kitzhaber.  He's not leading by much, but throughout June he has maintained the lead over the well-known and well-liked former governor.  I don't know his politics.  He could be a Scott Brown or he could be a Jim DeMint, but regardless, the fact that a relative no-name can compete effectively in Oregon against a popular Democrat shows how real the Republican tide is this year.

Net Neutrality Discussion

OK, if we're talking about Net Neutrality, then this really is government horning in on free enterprise to regulate access, so I'm definitely against.  That picture to the left is part of 'the internet'.  It's not a magical place of infinite bandwidth.  They are massive arrays of huge power-sucking servers connected by high speed fiber and microwave communications.  They have limits as to what they can do.  I had to post this response rather than comment, because it was too big.

Ace of Spades summed up the arguments on both sides succinctly in 2006:

I don't know much about this issue. People start talking about tubes and I just can't follow the techincal details.

This is pretty much the state of the debate as far as I can tell.

1) You put things into tubes.

a) There are many things that may be put into tubes.

b) But they break down into four broad categories:

i. Pictures of big-breasted lesbians hitting each other with pillows.

ii. Pictures of cats.

iii. Guys pretending to be big-breasted lesbians, trying to find other big-breasted lesbians, so they can punch the clown to dirty typing about hitting each other with pillows, resulting in thousands of dudes wacking off with other dudes while they're all pretending to be a lesbian stripper named "Summer Autumn."

iv. More pictures of cats.

2) There is only so much room in these tubes.

3) So some people would like to charge different users different amounts to fill the tubes with different things.

a) Some worry that without this scheme, low-tubewidth users will not be able to send each other pictures of cats.

b) But with such a scheme, high-tubewidth users will have to pay more to download video of big-breasted lesbians hitting each other with pillows.

4) Both sides of the debate lay claim to the virtues of promoting freedom, equal access, innovation, and capitalism.

a) But no one will tell me if which side is going to cost me more for logging on to AOL chat under the name "Summer Autumn."

5) Ergo: I care passionately about this issue, but I don't care, because I can't understand it, and no one will tell me how my clown-punching activities will be affected.

What Ace is saying is that the telcos want to charge the high-bandwidth users a higher price for hogging up the -finite- space on the internet. The government wants to keep the price for access equal. This isn't a clear-cut decision, but when in doubt...see my comment in Melkor's article.
From the New York Times

Currently, Internet users get access to any Web site on an equal basis. Foreign and domestic sites, big corporate home pages and low-traffic blogs all show up on a user’s screen in the same way when their addresses are typed into a browser, and the Federal Communications Commission has come out in favor of keeping things that way.

Cable and telephone companies are talking, however, about creating a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane and a slow lane. Companies that pay higher rates would have their Web pages delivered to Internet users in the current speedy fashion. Companies and individuals that do not would be relegated to the slow lane.

In a significant decision, a federal appeals court ruled in April 2010 that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a big victory for the Comcast Corporation, the nation’s largest cable company. It had challenged the F.C.C.’s authority to impose the so-called “net neutraility” obligations."

This is a "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" situation for anti-statist, small-government folks. The telcos want these two-tiered systems because it costs them big money for the servers and transmission systems that enable the high-bandwidth communications. In other words, telcos feel that they make these different charges to keep their system running at a reasonable cost to the consumer.

Obama, as usual, is using this to increase statist control.  From the same New York Times article:

President Obama declared in May 2009 that he is “firmly committed to net neutrality so we can keep the Internet as it should be — open and free.” The FCC under the Obama administration is moving to add a fifth principle that will prevent Internet providers from discriminating against certain services or applications. Consumer advocates are concerned that Internet providers might ban or degrade services that compete with their own offerings, like television shows delivered over the Web."

The telcos will rightly say that without the two-tiered system, rates will go up for everyone to enable them to keep the system functioning. The government doesn't want to allow telcos to charge people extra for high bandwidth useage, in order to keep the system 'fair'.

OK RTP'rs: here's the difficult decision: allow telcos to economically operate their system, or allow government to regulate the system and force higher rates on everyone to enable equal access/use.   My answer is that private enterprise will eventually arrive at the right solution, as opposed to government regulating and raising rates on everyone.  I admit that there are good arguments both ways and would not harshly criticize someone who thought net neutrality was a good idea.  But, these are where the decisions are made that slowly ratchet up the control. 

Show us your colors.

Internet Kill Switch: Worthy Discussion?

This might seem like a trivial issue, but I was wondering what the consensus would be here. A proposal that would give the Dept of Homeland Security significant control over the internet in times of crisis is before the Senate (Protecting the Internet as a National Asset Bill). This would effectively enable the Executive to turn off portions of the internet, all of it, to various regions/sectors/etc. It could also force priority usage of bandwidth giving government and key infrastructure facilities (whether private or public) communication capabilities in case of an emergency.

As you can probably tell from the website, which seemed the most viscerally concerned about it, it seems some conservatives are opposed to this bill. However, if you follow through with this link, I think you should get a pretty good grasp on how vital/vulnerable the internet is to the country. This bill seems to be a reaction from Defense concerns about how open the US could be to attack, especially with the devastating war that would be fought if foreign actors took control of unprotected domestic machines and used them to launch attacks against gov't and/or key private facilities. Being able to partition key facilities from the rest of the net and controlling access to bandwidth is vital to surviving a cyber attack.

So why are people that fear this dumb?

The logic used by the Texas GOP is the most ridiculous I came across. How the hell is a billion zillion internet users going to "privately" defend themselves from a coherent and unified foreign attack? If this logic were true, all police and military forces should be private. Dumb. Just as the President could theoretically use this to silence dissent, so could he utilize his monopoly of violence with the military. If he's willing to silence your internet usage, I'm sure he'll have a grunt beating you with a baton when you take to the streets to bitch about it. If you think this is a giant monitoring scheme then you're even further behind the times and should research how big the NSA's current workload dealing with billions of terror related traffic. The gov't doesn't have the capability nor the desire to read our personal griefs to Washington. Plus, it pretty much has the right to do that by the Patriot Act. Where was the Texas GOP protesting when that was passed? Ohh yeah, we were still wondering how to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks. Maybe it's good that we're trying to pass this BEFORE an attack, and not after.

The Republican Party needs to pick its battles more appropriately or at least, figure out some way to explain it's willingness to trespass dangerously close to civil liberties with the Patriot Act, but is bellicose with this measure.

Stop being retarded.