Vermont's recently legislature voted to allow gay marriage. Now, New Hampshire is on that path.
Of course, Iowa's Supreme Court rendered a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. A lot of folks are agitating for a vote by the people of Iowa. I'm good with that. Let the people vote...
The question I have for those who oppose gay marriage: what liberty is removed from others by two gays marrying? And if it doesn't impact anyone's liberty, why do you care about the personal life of someone else who isn't infringing on the liberty of others?
Recently, Wells Fargo posted a $3 billion profit for the first quarter. Awesome! We need banks that score profits. That's what a responsible business does.
Wells Fargo Co. (WFC) CEO John Stumpf on Tuesday defended the company's decision to accept $25 billion from a government fund meant for distressed banks and said the company will "earn its way out" of the situation.
At that rate of profit, that means that every penny of Wells Fargo's profits for the next two years will be required to pay back the TARP money.
Keep in mind that this all seems like a lot of money.
How does a trillion sound? A trillion is a million millions. And we're spending trillions of dollars at the national level. Do you know how long it would take Wells Fargo - a huge and successful bank by any standard - to pay pay back a trillion dollars? 83 years. Every penny of profit for 83 years.
If you think it's responsible for the government to be spending trillions of dollars, to be paid back by our kids, you're either really bad at math, or you are immoral for the hurt you promote to our children.
A lot of people have made a big deal about Arlen Specter's leap to the Democrats.
Isn't that just truth in advertising?
Truth be told, there are two parties in Washington, and neither is labeled Democrat or Republican.
One is the Spendocrat Party. About 80% to 85% of all elected officials belong to this party. This group seeks to use your tax money laundered through Washington to gain power for themselves.
The rest belong to the Bewildered Party. They have no clue how to counter this nonsense, can't organize to do so, and seem to have forgotten how attractive liberty is and can't communicate about that.
In what is likely to be the dumbest move ever by any president's administration, Obama's folks authorized a buzz over New York City by Air Force One itself. New Yorkers reacted appropriately:
As you can see, it panicked plenty of people. Understandably.
Why, it's almost like 9/11 never happened for these folks in the White House...
Tomorrow, I hold a 5th strategy session with a non-profit here in Des Moines. We're walking through the RAISED survey, and the executive director told me last week that these meetings are the ones he most looks forward to each week. We're rethinking their org, and we're coming to some sound conclusions about direction.
One aspect we're expanding for them is their volunteer base. Volunteers are a free resource to a non-profit in struggling economic times. The volunteers themselves might be looking for more meaning and purpose in how they spend their time. So how do we widen that channel of good energy?
A while back, I built the 247 technology, and in my discussions with them and also with my work on the successful Des Moines Tea Party, how to best engage a base of volunteers has been on my mind a lot. People want to give to those efforts they really believe in. How do you pull them in and keep them productive in ways that entice them to come back again and again because it feels so good to them?
I think I can repurpose the 247 technology for such a need. And so today, I'm working on a first draft for political volunteers.
But whether it's political volunteers or engaging volunteers for anything, the needs are roughly the same. I've compiled a list of skills, categorized them, and now on my laptop's localhost, I'm retooling.
I'll take this into the strategy session tomorrow. The executive director told me that non-profits don't have anything like this to manage volunteers. So we'll see if my exploration here will prove worthwhile.
ETC: Went up to Ames today for a business meeting and stopped by my mom's house. She watched Kurt's video and then brought out something I had sketched when I was 17.
Moms keep stuff like that :)
Thanks to AJ, Vanessa, Darwyn, Sarah, MJJ, Kurt, and Elsah from LG and KTLA for a cool experience.
Tomorrow, I hold a 5th strategy session with a non-profit here in Des Moines. We're walking through 
