in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
liberals online since 2000. NOTE: That is NOT
me pictured at left. :)
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Audacity of Truth
"Diplomacy":
"People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi." - NC Gov. Bev Perdue (D) on the passage of Amendment One, 5-11-12
Cash-strapped CA pays $75K to hear Tom Friedman give speech you can get for free online
The SF Chronicle reports:
Judging by the $75,000 speaking fee it paid to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has plenty of green to burn even in these lean times.
The agency, which gets its money from business permits and federal and state sources, booked the Pulitzer Prize-winning pundit to appear this past week at its big climate summit in downtown Oakland’s Fox Theater, attended by 500 invited bureaucrats.
In addition to Friedman’s speaking fee, the air board picked up his tab for a night at the Claremont Resort.
Air district spokeswoman Lisa Fasano put the summit cost at $200,000 – or about $400 per participant.
Fasano said the idea was to bring together managers and planners to “spark even greater movement” in the effort to reduce the Bay Area’s greenhouse-gas footprint.
Friedman spent about two hours with the group, including answering questions and autographing copies of his latest book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded” – in which he argues that a national strategy of “geo-Greenism” is needed to save the planet from global warming and to make the country more productive.
As for reports that Friedman’s talk was almost identical to a speech he gave in November in Florida at a National League of Cities confab – which is available online for free? “That very likely may be,” Fasano said. “But this certainly is much more moving and inspirational to see and hear in person.”
For that price, we hope so.
I’ve not been able to find a copy of the speech online, but here’s a link to video from that Florida conference (via Nevada County Watch).
To channel liberals when they “catch” conservatives “wasting” money on things like war funding, “Just how many children’s mouths could that $75,000 have fed?”
Another burning question: How did Friedman get there? Did he fly coach on a commerical airliner, or private jumbo jet? If he drove, was it in a hybrid vehicle? Or did he take a bicycle? Inquring minds want to know. 
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The article’s authors are Matier & Ross, two of my favorites. Their column is a must-read for Bay Area politics — and head-shaker stories.
One of the big structural problem here is the plethora of special districts created over the years for this and that purpose, supported by special fees and taxes and supporting many, many $100k+ jobs. There are so many, and so many of questionable utility, that it’s hard to catalog them all. I’m not surprised these clowns felt they had money to burn to fly in a high-priced speaker; they’re accountable to almost no one.
Meanwhile, only liberal drones think Friedman has anything worthwhile to say anymore. Forget his belief in the farce of global warming, the man hasn’t had a deep thought in years. His last book, “The World is Flat,” was a series of tired banalities dressed up by the words “Famous New York Times author.” He was a good observer of international affairs once, but those days are long past.
Didn’t California send out IOU’s for tax refunds. I am sure that I would understand the math if I lived there. Why have I used the same amount of Tylenol in the last 110 days as I did in all of the last 8 years?
Now you’ve done it! I can’t get the image of Tom Friedman on a bicycle out of my head. I can see him now, dodging traffic on Eighth Avenue, on his way to the Times bldg. In my mind he’s wearing an electric blue helmet over his business suit, his pant legs rolled up. Perhaps pasted on to that helmet is an advert for his book.
Note: I, too, liked him better when he was writing about foreign affairs, and I wish he’d go back to that.
“Catching” conservatives is entirely different than “catching” libs in their multitudinous mountains of lies, because all of their lies come from the heart and are for the betterment of mankind (no matter the actual damage), while conservatives are only greedy and vicious.
That’s why it was ok to spend $75k on a nutcase like Friedman, and why the giant footprint of his one-day trip to CA doesn’t matter.
@RickinTexas:
Nope, the state sent us real, honest to goodness checks. Mine arrived on April 1st, which did make me wonder a bit…