Last update: Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Hi everyone!
Welcome to Social Notes, the sometimes weekly goings-on of Houston’s lesbian community. You can sign up
to receive an email notice every time I update the site (usually 2 to 4 times per month), by clicking on the
blue box in the upper right hand corner of this page. Now, let me show you around the website:
- The Calendar page contains a listing of events for the next couple of months.
- To find out about clubs and organizations, check out the Organizations page. This page is sub-divided
to make it easier to find things.
- I know all you kind-hearted pet-loving lesbians would want to know about animals needing a new home,
so I included a Pets page.
- The Jobs Page lists both women in search of jobs, and job openings for gay-friendly positions.
- If you want to support lesbian, women-owned, or just generally gay-friendly businesses, then check
out the Networking Page. This page has also been recently subdivided to make it easier to find what
you are looking for.
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Please take 5 minutes to fill our a survey for me!
As many of you know, it is my goal in life to own and operate an upscale dude ranch/wilderness resort for the
GLBT community, to be located in the Rocky Mountains. To help with my business planning, I am gathering
input about gay travel in general and about interest in my specific project. Would you all please take 5
minutes to fill out a 19 question survey? And since I am asking for favors, would you also pass this request
along to your GLBT friends around the world? For this survey to be effective, I need lots of responses,
from lots of states/countries. This link will take you to the survey. Thanks in advance for your input and
your help!
PS: If the link doesn't work, here is the address for the survey:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225MAXB573C
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The Rant
Mitt Romney squeaked out a victory in the Iowa caucus and won with around 40% of the vote in New
Hampshire (really, you have campaigned for 5 years in the state closest to your own and all you can drum up
is 40% support?), but he is about to get chewed up in South Carolina, home of really ugly primary politics.
Before I tell you more about Romney's troubles, let's turn back the pages of time to tell you a little story
about just how nasty South Carolina gets: When George W Bush was running for pres the first time (in 1999
and 2000), he was struggling to beat McCain as he came into South Carolina - Bush was VERY worried. W's
minions, in the form of Karl Rove, began to spread rumors that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black
child. In reality, McCain and his wife had adopted a dark skinned girl from another country, but that is
neither here nor there. The lies worked, and Bush took the state. When McCain confronted Bush about the
scurrilous attacks, Bush smirked "Hey, it's just politics". Side note: one of the thousands of reasons I
have no respect for McCain is that he made up to Bush after that incident.
But onto current events. Mitt, the amazing Android candidate, ran MILLIONS of dollars of attack ads
against Newt Gingrich in Iowa, whereby Newt watched his lead crumple. Newt is absolutely furious and has
pledged to take it to the Mittster in SC, and he has found a hedge fund billionaire to fund the effort, to the
tune of $5 million.
Newt, and to a lesser extent (and I mean that in every possible way!) Rick Perry, are now on the trail
exposing just exactly what kind of businessman Romney was during his days as head of Bain Capital. As
Romney loves to tout on the stump, he is a job creator extraordinaire, and cites his Bain experience as
proof. One problem: job creation was NOT the Bain model. They weren't buying up companies, carefully
pruning the dead weight and delivering much healthier companies in the long run. Au contraire..
Bain's model was to buy companies, and artificially increase short term earnings so those businesses could
borrow enormous amounts of money. This money was used to pay the company's executives (who were
responsible for bringing Bain in) obscene bonuses, and to pay Bain huge dividends.
The only problem was that in many cases the debt service just wasn't sustainable, forcing the companies to
lay off much of their workforce and often to declare bankruptcy. How exactly does that qualify as being a
job creator?
Look, if Romney wanted to go around saying you should vote for him because he is a ruthless wealth creator
(for his investors), then you couldn't really slam him for it. It is an ugly practice, and immoral as hell, but it
is legal and he was apparently excellent at it.
But he's going around the country saying that he is a much superior job creator to Obama, and that is just
crap. Even is you set aside Bain's Sherman-like march through the economic landscape, and look at his
performance as governor, his performance has been pathetic. During his tenure, Massachusetts was ranked
47th in job creation.
Newt has paid for a 30 minute infomercial, laying out the Bain details in excruciating detail, complete with
interviews from some of the employees who were laid off because of Bain. For once, Rick Perry got
something right, when he called this vulture capitalism, instead of venture capitalism.
Newt knows he can't win now, but he is so mad at Romney that he has vowed to take Mitt and the whole
party down with him. Pass the popcorn!!!!!
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And of course, the political rant happens right here.
It might seem strange to mix lesbian social info
with political observations, but it works for me.
If it doesn't work for you,
then feel free to skip ahead!
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