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DEL.ICIO.USGovernor in driver’s seat on transportation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Leave it to a trucker — a trucker of a sort — to get to the gist of the traffic congestion problem in Georgia.
He did it by recounting four seconds as a child on a school bus field trip. The bus hit a bad stretch of road. The driver, tossed from her seat by a sudden bump, tumbled into the exit well.
The driverless bus “began to lose direction and speed — we were only going where momentum was carrying us. …” Of those who reacted, some just yelled, others reached for the wheel, and others reached for the driver.
Getting her back in control “probably took only about three or four seconds … but for those of us who saw it, it was a moment frozen in time, a moment that seemed as though it would last forever.”
The trucker speaking here is Ed Crowell, president of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association. His remarks were made at a luncheon of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation think tank. There’s a point to his story that reflects an indisputable truth.
“Our state today may be in that same kind of frozen moment,” said Crowell. “We may not have anyone in the driver’s seat.”
There can, of course, be one only person in the driver’s seat — and that is Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Crowell, a clever man who was describing an event in his childhood in Haddon Heights, N.J., describes Georgia’s transportation system as a “Yankee containment system.” The state’s strategy a half-century ago, he said, was “to funnel all the major interstates into a ridiculous nexus right in the heart of Atlanta” and to add “an overabundance of off-ramps to ensure congestion, along with illogical interchanges and convoluted connectors to create confusion.” What’s more, he notes, they threw a major airport in the same region.
“Then, just in case some Northerners still found their way out, they ensured the travelers would see absolutely nothing of significance on their 250-mile trip south until they crossed into Florida.”
No darts, please, from the natives to the South, for while terribly attractive points of interest have, indeed, sprung up or grown out to the interstates, Crowell is speaking of the past. As he noted later, too, he would have been a Georgian earlier but for “the unfortunate geographic facts of my birth (please understand I wanted to be near my mother), but I got here as fast as I could.”
The state’s strategy, he said, was growth: “growth was the only definable goal, growing was the strategy.”
Here we depart from Mr. Crowell to examine where the bus is moving in the era beyond growth for growth’s sake.
Promising things are happening. Just this week, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) approved a memorandum of understanding that defines how projects are to be chosen and funded. The agreement will include the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Georgia Department of Transportation.
It picks up language from a metro congestion mitigation task force committing the state to selecting projects on the basis of how they solve gridlock. All would be required to use congestion relief as the major factor (70 percent weight), subject them to cost-benefit analysis and to fix and measure a gridlock-relief goal. All will agree to adopt plans “that clearly target congestion and mobility.”
That’s big — and it’s vital.
Meanwhile, a joint House-Senate task force, which has been studying the state’s transportation and funding systems, will produce legislation to be introduced in January. Elements likely to be included would convert the 7.5-cent gasoline tax into a statewide sales tax as an even swap, roughly two-thirds of a penny. And it’s likely to include a proposal to allow counties to join together to levy a local sales tax, something metro Atlanta leaders favor, though the governor may not yet be sold.
Most importantly, though, are two related needs: an honest-to-goodness statewide transportation plan — statewide, not regional — and a clear delineation of roles and authority with a hierarchy that leads to, and stops at, the governor’s office and the Legislature.
There’s one driver. That’s the governor. There’s one school bus procurement source. That’s the Georgia General Assembly.
• Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
Permalink | Comments (172) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Comments
By TW
November 17, 2007 8:18 AM | Link to this
Maybe Sonny’ll get to it after he fixes the flag? Relax, Jim, I’m sure it’s on the ‘Sonny Do’ list!
By ron
November 17, 2007 8:33 AM | Link to this
With Sonny having an”affirmation” straight from god,he should get Creflo on his side as fund raiser.Imagine what those two,and God, could do to resolve Georgia’s transportation problems.
By WTD
November 17, 2007 8:39 AM | Link to this
Georgia has been falling behind in Transportation funding and planning for years.
Gridlock is the next “Drought” facing Atlanta and Georgia.
By jm
November 17, 2007 8:57 AM | Link to this
and just like that bus driver, I bet Sonny isn’t wearing his seat belt.
By Just Nasty anfd Mean
November 17, 2007 9:08 AM | Link to this
Let’s admit it. Road development in Georgia has more to do with politics and connections that it ever has had to do with need. Any impartial person could see the economic engine of Georgia, and possibly the southeast US, has been chocked off and woefully neglected of its proportional share of funding. If you question that remark, one needs only ask the question: “Who spends the most time in traffic?”.
And with all these political bodies involved (GRTA, ARC, GDOT, MARTA, Governor, Legislature) we can all set aside any angst and rest assured—things will not change. In Georgia, politics remains the supreme decider of who gets road funding.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 9:08 AM | Link to this
…..the bus driver was wearing a beer hat, however.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 9:14 AM | Link to this
…with a safety chin strap, no doubt.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 9:15 AM | Link to this
Mornin. A rully rully well made column, Jim. Thanks for all the legwork and careful literary piloting through Wonkdom. Your spin is far too hale, as usual, but readers like it polite and upbeat, don’t they? I mean, the alternative would to point out how pathetic much of this transportation planning is, and how it will worsen the problem, and that’s just not fit for weekend reading.
TW, what a bloody good idea, a “Sonny Do” list! What do you suppose is on it at the moment?
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 9:17 AM | Link to this
Why in Sam Hill would Sonny be wearing a seatbelt when he’s not in the driver’s seat?
By Jim Wooten
November 17, 2007 9:25 AM | Link to this
When governors are school bus drivers, school bus drivers should be governors.
No, no. “When school buses are governors, governors sho
No wait! When governors are school bus drivers, school bus drivers should not go on sit-down strike.
There. Nailed it.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 9:37 AM | Link to this
Sonny will hold another prayer meeting to ask God to fix it.
Geez.
By TW
November 17, 2007 9:39 AM | Link to this
Glenn - Don’t know about the list? It’s a beautiful thing, really. You see, there’s nothing on it. That’s one of the neat things about being an elected official from a state that still thinks the fish cause the tides. And that Sonny is a Republican is the cherry on top. His inactivity destroys the American government, you see, thus adding fire to the anti-American government platform of the Republican Party. Really quite brilliant, wouldn’t you say?
Good comment on Wooten today. It’s nice to see him address an issue that directly impacts him and his Cobb County Clan. Wish he cared about our soldiers as much as he does his commute.
Have a great day, Glenn!
By @@
November 17, 2007 9:52 AM | Link to this
Hi’ya Jim. Sounds good but what I know about Atlanta’s gridlock is that it’s wise to avoid it when possible. With me, the possibilities are endless.
No need to worry though; if Sonny can’t do it a bevy of civil engineers showed ^^^ up this morning with cemented bowels looking to dump it somewhere.
One more thing before I go…
why is Georgia holding yankees hostage? all they do is complain.
By TW
November 17, 2007 10:15 AM | Link to this
Well, if it ain’t @@, Pastor of Convenient Christian Church!
why is Georgia holding yankees hostage? all they do is complain
Much better just to bend over and take it, eh?
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this
Mr. Crowell’s historical description of the transportation system as a Rube Goldberg device for trapping Yankees is the best part!
TW, as I am but Georgish Diaspora newly returned to the Promised Land, I almost believed your information concerning Sonny’s blank list. Well the joke’s on you, Smarty Breeches, because I just checked the press releases on the Governor’s website. As a matter of fact he’s going to be busy all next week. On Monday he’s going up to a poultry farm in Dawson County to pardon a turkey. On Tuesday it’s a ribbon-cutting for the new offramp and grade separation servicing Dupree’s Billiards and Bait. On Wednesday he’s placing a Georgia Historic Marker at the feet of the Big Chicken. And the day after Thanksgiving he’s to declare February “Georgia Peanut Month”.
By TW
November 17, 2007 10:32 AM | Link to this
Glenn - My apologies - I stand corrected. Perhaps he deserves a raise?
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 10:40 AM | Link to this
There’s one thing most Georgians dont realize: We love our Sonny. I think he’s the most lovable governor we’ve ever had. When he prayed for rain, he took a whole lot of satire, but the truth was that the criticism was desperation. His opponents realized that they loved him. We cant help who we fall in love with. Usually we dont know that we are in love. Witness JFK. We didn’t see that coming at all, and the shock was stupifying. We loved JFK, but only realized it after he was gone. Well, I believe that we love Sonny, but most of us dont realize it yet. I do. It occurred to me yesterday. I love the governor. I really do. I love that man, and maybe I dont agree with every political decision he’s ever made, but I support him now that I love him. I really do love the governor.
Georgia fell in love with Sonny that day he prayed for rain. It was the perfect move. Prayer can bring miracles. Did the prayer bring rain? no. The prayer brought love. Our love. Our love for Sonny.
The media photo of him, in prayer, looking like martyrs in old religious paintings, his face contorted in meditation, the seriousness and passion he felt was real, you simply cannot fake a religious stupor. The camera doesn’t lie.
I’m glad that I love our governor. Love changes everything, even me.
Sonny rocks!
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 11:05 AM | Link to this
Stand up, stand up for Sonny,
Ye minions of the Cross!
Lift high his Georgia banner!
He shall not gather moss!
From rec’try unto rec’try
Our prayers he shall lead,
‘Til ev’ry Dem is vanquished
And lakebeds go to seed!
‘Til ev’ry Dem is vanquished
*And suffers
By getalife
November 17, 2007 11:16 AM | Link to this
In Basra, violence is a tenth of what it was before British pullback, general says
This excellent news.
Bring em home for the holidays.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 11:18 AM | Link to this
You’re quite mad, you know.
By TW
November 17, 2007 11:23 AM | Link to this
C’mon, getalife - lots more coin to be made off this gaffe before you start circulating nonsense like that…shhhh…
By University of Michigan
November 17, 2007 11:23 AM | Link to this
November 17, 2007
TO: Jim Wooten FR: Dean, Arch. & Urban Planning RE: Draft column: Transportation
Thanks for forwarding your draft for our perusal. The truck driver is a real find—intelligent and witty. We suggest that you address the following:
How does it happen that your RTA is only now prioritizing projects that relieve headache, congestion, cough and runny nose? Who then has been committing malpractice all these years?
How does the proposal to permit counties to levy a sales tax relieve traffic congestion? Doesn’t it do the exact opposite? Doesn’t it “fiscalize” land use by incentivizing counties to zone for big-box retail in search of the new source of discretionary revenue, a portion of every retail dollar? Doesn’t this cause counties to over-build retailers, to compete for auto malls and shopping centers, and even to pirate one another’s large-footprint sales tax generators? Doesn’t overbuilt suburban retail lure non-residents to shop and even to locate in the suburban areas? Doesn’t this migration cause sprawl and congestion?
What, in your piece, points to the advent of statewide transportation planning, as distinguished from regional planning?
From the perspective of transportation theory we would ask: If planning is the engine of the school bus, then isn’t the engine’s governor calibrated too low?
Finally, shouldn’t you endorse Rudy 08?
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 11:25 AM | Link to this
It’s better than the alternative.
By @@
November 17, 2007 11:28 AM | Link to this
Good grief TW — lighten up, it was a joke. Does TW stand for Tight Wad btw?
I’m not a southerner. I’m not a northerner. I take no hostages other than you obviously.
It’s a beautiful day and I plan to enjoy it outdoors.
You have a good one however you want to define it.
By Dr. Guvlove
November 17, 2007 11:29 AM | Link to this
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Psalms
By TW
November 17, 2007 11:32 AM | Link to this
You have a good one, too, @@. And thanks - the thought of you holding me hostage has made my day ;)
By Dusty
November 17, 2007 11:34 AM | Link to this
Fools like to post in bloggin’ spaces
Even when they can’t tie their own shoelaces.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this
Oh great, government is going to “fix” the gridlock, wonderful.
If they ever get out of committee that is.
Privatize.
~~~~~~
{{{{Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred “diamonds or pearls” at last night’s debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.}}}}
{{{{“Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN,” Luisa writes.}}}}
They knew the world was watching, it still didn’t matter to them to lie like rugs.
What total, unmitigated dishonesty, why are they so afraid to show the real Hillary Clinton?
Makes you wonder, don’t it?
And look at what the Clintoon News Network passed off as an “independent” voter:
{{{{CATHERINE JACKSON: And, if President Bush starts another unnecessary war, there will be a chance that he will likely be recalled for war. All of you on the stage have formal political power or significant informal power, and have the ability to stop the rush to war.}}}}
Yeah, some “independent:”
{{{{According to the Las Vegas Review Journal reporter Molly Ball, Catherine Jackson took part as an activist in an anti-war rally on May 18, 2007.}}}}
All fake, all lies, all BS, that’s your democrat party for you.
~~~~~~
Look at the filthy POS Urinal still trying to make an “war crime” out of Haditha:
{{{{The highest-ranking U.S. serviceman to face a combat-related court-martial since the Vietnam War was arraigned Friday at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on charges of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis, including women and children, on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha.}}}}
Isn’t it sad, AJC, that no US soldiers were charged with murder, rape or anything else that you scumbags would love to rub America’s face in?
GTH.
~~~~~~~
{{{{In a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the Massachusetts Democrat, John “Band Aid” Kerry wrote: “While I am prepared to show they lied on allegation after allegation, you have generously offered to pay one million dollars for just one thing that can be proven false. I am prepared to prove the lie beyond any reasonable doubt.”}}}}
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ®.
Yawn.
3 years after the election, still only wind blowing.
Somebody wake me up when this GASBAG gets beyond words, please.
~~~~~~
{{{{The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that federally protected mussels can live with less water from Lanier, which could allow drought-stricken Georgia to keep more water in the drying lake.}}}}
Well what do you know, the humans finally won one over the animal kingdom, doesn’t everyone feel just a tad more important this morning?
And a tad less stupid?
~~~~~~~
{{{{The Jena case has angered blacks who say noose-hanging incidents should be forcefully prosecuted. Lax prosecution, they charge, has led to other, similar incidents since the Jena case came to light.-POS Urinal}}}}
Sniff, sniff.
{{{{Atlanta Journal editorial writer Tom Teepen wrote, “Mr. Serrano does valid work. His equivocal icons express unresolved feelings about the Hispanic Catholic culture of his youth. His use of body fluids explores and exploits the potency of their connotations.”}}}}
Of course the scumbag Urinal was on the side of free speech with the “P** Christ.”
Gee, how quickly things change with the mealy mouthed liberals.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 11:42 AM | Link to this
@@, I too am neither southerner nor northerner. Just a wandering goy and oy, my aching Georgia! For this I came clear awcrowuss the country? Complaints? Complaints?? Yankee schmanky, you don’t know from complaints! I got complaints like you nevah hoid, awready!
By getalife
November 17, 2007 12:02 PM | Link to this
Yes duh,
Those socialized roads should be toll roads, another tax idiot.
Good news out of Basra duh.
Withdraw and violence ends.
It is the occupation stupid.
What a freakin waste of lives and treasury.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 12:04 PM | Link to this
My hometown and State ♥ them some Clintons.
Bwa.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 12:06 PM | Link to this
Dusty @ 11:34,
It ain’t Sidney Lanier, but it’s a mighty fine ditty, yours. Did you get my final response just before the closing bell? Long weirdly “egocentric” genealogy and apologia pro litterae vulgaris.
LuckoduhDraw @ 11:39,
Amen! Amen I say! I say give us a A-men! YES-suh! Yes-SUH! Ah cuhhhhme a-PURPOSE! DASright! Amen! Yes-SUH! Do tail! Yessuh! Tellit! Pri-vit-ty-ZATION! Yehhhsssss! A-a-a-men.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 12:08 PM | Link to this
duh,
They screened Billiam the snowman too.
They have to make sure there is not a nutjob like you asking idiotic questions.
Geez.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 12:10 PM | Link to this
Schoolmarms’ names, like schoolmarms’ faces:
Often showing scolding traces.
By jm
November 17, 2007 12:39 PM | Link to this
Funny thing duh, everyone likes to take shots at the mussels but power plants down river also rely on the water released from Lake Lanier. Even if the mussels were not “endangered”, the corps would still be releasing the water.
By Gunga Dan
November 17, 2007 1:03 PM | Link to this
Courage.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 1:05 PM | Link to this
Oh, so now the libs want to generate more power, global warming be damned:
{{{{By jm November 17, 2007 12:39 PM Funny thing duh, everyone likes to take shots at the mussels but power plants down river also rely on the water released from Lake Lanier. Even if the mussels were not “endangered”, the corps would still be releasing the water.}}}}
Um-
{{{{Following Friday’s meeting with power company officials, Jimmy Palmer, regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said the ever-lowering water levels would challenge but not impair the utilities’ ability to provide power. “If [a power plant] were to have to throttle back or shut down, there are still ways for the companies to pull from the grid” and supply electricity, Palmer said. “It’s really tricky, but it can be done.”}}}}
Plus, while they are shut down, they can build a recirculation pond and not have to suck the river dry in the future.
This whole debate has been rather fascinating, if anything, at least now we know that government doesn’t find humans to be essential and have to think about which is more important, us or some fishies.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 1:21 PM | Link to this
Dr. Guvlove was actually quite good. “How I learned to stop worrying and love the psalms.”
That was every bit as good as I can retort. I feel humbled.
Bravo. But who is it? I cant trust whoever this is. Everyone will claim to be you, and thus, you’re neutralized.
But! If you really have talent, you wont care. You can shine later and it will be obvious.
But….. great bit!
By Gunga Dan
November 17, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this
‘Twas I. I am Spartacus!
By jm
November 17, 2007 1:39 PM | Link to this
duh - winter is generally off peak time for power companies, let’s see if he is still singing that tune when demand ramps up come spring time.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 1:58 PM | Link to this
Luckoduh,
Two things. First, the info on the rigging of the Dem debate is an exciting expose, and if the GOP doesn’t shove it up the tuchus of CNN (Wolf Blitzer makes an unlikely Leni Riefenstahl) and The Battleaxe’s Beer Hall Goons then they deserve to lose. I plan to stay closely tuned for the next several news cycles to see whether the media (a) avoid the story; (b) take the opportunity to pile on their competitor CNN; (c) moderate the story, if they pick it up, so as not to do too much rock-throwing inside the glass house.
In re Serrano’s “P1$$ Christ”, are you citing Teepen’s piece from 1990, or is something happening again on that front? That “art” is not constitutionally protected expression in most cities, and almost certainly not in Dusty’s Atlanta. If the AJC really defended it on First Amendment grounds, then the paper’s more inane than I’d reckoned. They should never be allowed to live that one down.
[Rudy 08]
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 2:05 PM | Link to this
did you say that you were spartacus or ‘tard-o-lisp?
I wonder why nobody pretends to be analchord. I think that speaks for itself, dont you?
This brings up the quandry of doing bits. The Wizard of Oz illustrates this amazingly well.
The script called for, and who could resist, a rhyme of the word “Wizard” and a rhyme of the word, “Witch”.
Look at this genius writer’s choices: Slitch and Gizzard.
“The Kitchen took a slitch”
and
“I’d be clever as a gizzard”.
Now, in the thirties, when the score was written, “slitch” and “gizzard” hasddifferent or better known meanings.
Slitch refers to serious injury. Thus during the tornado, the house including the kitchen took a slitch, or serious damage. Gizzard is just the part of a bird’s stomach that grinds it’s food, thus a gizzard could be considered clever cause it knows what to do with the food, but it’s a stretch. There could have been a colloquialism that has long since been lost to us that the writer was referring to, but I doubt it. He just had only one word left after “I’d be gentle as a lizard”, and “I’d be brave as a blizzard”, and that would be “I’d be clever as a gizzard”.
It was a compromise and I think he agonized over it, but to his credit, I haven’t really understood this poor choice till now. I hate the word “gizzard”. A comedian named “Elmo” once tried it out in the 80’s and it ruined his career.
‘muff said
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 2:22 PM | Link to this
Glennduh: You repeatedly give yourself away. I actually read your comment today, dont know why. Nobody would have been able to navigate the references you alluded to in your reply to Glennduh, (yourself), except yourself. Nobody would have watched that much Fox vs Cnn except an insane idiot like you…. and if they had, then they wouldn’t have been on top of the other obscure reference you made to Teepen. Just wouldn’t have happened. Statistically, no two dimwits could possibly meet on the same blog at the same level of ‘tard.
Just not possible, pal. So stop! Push yourself away from the keyboard. Stand up. Walk as far away as you possible can get in an hour. Then stick your head in a public toilet and become one with a senator.
Thus, you have given yourself away as a blogging fiend and you need to know that we all know that you are insane.
So go ahead and reply to yourself. Your hands are self-aggrandized veterans after all that practice you gave them during your volcanic puberty.
checkmate
By getalife
November 17, 2007 2:23 PM | Link to this
cons are dead wrong on global warming like there on everything else
Take any con position and it is a “me generation” position.
It is not about you cons, it is about the future generations that will be much better Americans than duh and his ilk.
By RW-(the original)
November 17, 2007 2:42 PM | Link to this
“Random” questioner at debate was Arkansas Democratic Party officer in 2003?
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 2:52 PM | Link to this
BikiniBabe,
I have never replied to my alter-selves. That seems out of bounds. Likewise theft of Luckoduh’s identity, which is sacrosanct—and inimitable anyway. Hence my questions were directed at LuckyLucianoduh, who certainly would have understood my references to his own work. I know he eschews chit-chat, but my bottled msg. was communication of a kind.
Speaking of which, the Latinate term “communication”, as we use it today, is a profanation of all—all—that is good. It’s related to the word “conspiracy”, which likewise has been turned on its head. Sometimes I think this world died a long time ago and we are all zombies who beget zombies. Like Jim’s beloved school system.
Duh’s info about the flagrant rigging of the other night’s debate holds the potential to color this coming election as much as the swift boat revelations did the last. CNN bizarred it. The lighting may have made Hill’s viz hard, but to the extent that they quizzed her they didn’t quiz hard, but instead gave her the royal treatment and fully Liz R’d it.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 2:58 PM | Link to this
RW,
Billiam the snowman was a plant too.
Who was the plant that called her a bi-tch for McLoser donations?
Anyhoo, I hope she does have CNN pimping her because rudy has fox. Fair and balance, if you will.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 3:02 PM | Link to this
The cons are not wrong on global warming. Ancient volcanic activity contributed to global warming for billions of years and nothing bad happened. Our pathetic emissions are probably not going to doom us, nor aggravate an already entrenched cycle of warming and cooling.
Quit pretending you know something that the planet doesn’t, Lickawipe.
By RW-(the original)
November 17, 2007 3:07 PM | Link to this
getalife,
Who cares who’s showing up at McCain events? I’ve got as much chance of getting elected as he does.
When you claim you’re taking questions from the regular folks it would be nice if that were true.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 3:15 PM | Link to this
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of more than money:
Of droughts and writs and Water Acts,
Of signatures and Sonny.”
Who’d like to join my new Exploratory Committee for the Recall of the Governor?
The state Constitution and Government Code prescribe procedures for recalling the Governor “for failure to perform duties”.
For a petition for a special recall election to qualify, the signatures of 15% of eligible voters are required. That’s 2 people out of every 13+ voters.
Are you one of those 2/13ths?
When the bus driver’s asleep at the wheel, it’s time to hire another driver.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 3:20 PM | Link to this
Glennduh, a minute-b- minute, play-by-play of the polls is accurate only on election night and even then, it can be misleading, as we learned in 2000. Your expect too much of the voters to suggest that current events will weigh on election day.
I believe in the Bulldogs. This is the best Bulldog team I’ve ever seen.
One quarter left. Kentucky can run, at will, yet they insist on trying to pass. Thank heavens.
Go dogs. roof roof roof roof (what a game. do not miss this 4th quarter, people)
Kentucky is driving. Help.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 3:21 PM | Link to this
RW,
It is fun posting at kos supporting the Clintons.
They hate her as much as the wingnuts. I think all networks screen their questions. It is not an issue.
I just posted your link on kos’s post: Hot air ♥ kos.
Novak is starting a rumor that she has some dirt on Obama. Another non issue and think Biden is right, stick to the issues. They need solutions.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 3:21 PM | Link to this
get, I think the bi-tchy plant was Chris Dodd in Groucho nose-mustache-glasses.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 3:32 PM | Link to this
Why isn’t the Bulldog game in HD? It’s not fair. Curses.
What century are we in?
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 3:34 PM | Link to this
I’m pretty well aware of that, BikiniBeanie, but I also know good ammo when I see it. The swifties had their stuff out a year before the election, and the right people knew what to do about it and how to get the money, and they laid out a project-management plan replete with salaries and indirect costs, media buys, direct mail, press availabilites, multiple phases and dependent tasks—the whole works. They planned far in advance for it to build three weeks out, peak on the second Saturday before election day, and hold until Tuesday after next with a 10-day counterattack defense. A lot of money was made, and Kerry went down. As duh sez, he’s still p1$$ing and moaning. This thing about Hillary’s rigging the game is good grist for that money mill. Watch.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 3:37 PM | Link to this
That’s the game. Bulldogs got this one. No way to lose this, now. Go Dogs!
By RW-(the original)
November 17, 2007 3:47 PM | Link to this
getalife,
Do you have a link for the Hot air ♥ kos post?
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 3:48 PM | Link to this
{{{{By Bikini Bimbo November 17, 2007 2:22 PM So go ahead and reply to yourself.}}}}
What an excellent example of pinko liberalism, I think I can build on this one.
It is a great illustration of how a pinko will scold you for doing something that they are not only doing themselves, but going full tilt about it.
Like, for instance, al-Gore spewing at the United States about their energy usage while he zooms around the globe belching smoke behind Gulfstream Maximum and his Mansion in Rednecko Tennessee is lite up like the freaking Superdome.
Or maybe Ms. Juanita Edwards and her schtick about two Americas, guilt tripping the democrat party common duhlard about their stewardship towards the poor whilst Ms. Edwards covets millions upon millions of junk litigation money so she can build sprawling compounds for her and her cat.
Are you trying to become a lib superstar too, Polly?
Anyway, allow me to answer the one question I found worthy of a response and then I’ll leave you, um, two, to chat away.
{{{{In re Serrano’s “P1$$ Christ”, are you citing Teepen’s piece from 1990, or is something happening again on that front? If the AJC really defended it on First Amendment grounds, then the paper’s more inane than I’d reckoned.}}}}
Nothing new on the “Pis-s Christ” front, just addressing the AJC’s sudden aversion to first amendment rights, seems the nooses are cutting to close to home.
We wouldn’t want the little lovies to be upset, would we?
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 3:50 PM | Link to this
Ah, the plot-twists in this game! Were Kentucky one of those squirrely teams like Notre Dame or USC with a bookful of last-minute trick plays, there might be even more suspense. But this one’s good all right.
By RW-(the original)
November 17, 2007 3:56 PM | Link to this
getalife,
The Dawgs just won and Vandy’s ahead of Tennessee at the half. Could be showdown time with LSU on the horizon.
Go Commodores!!! Do it in honor of the Commodore64 the AJC uses for a blog server.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 3:58 PM | Link to this
Bulldogs rule.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 4:03 PM | Link to this
{{{{Asked whether human rights are more important than U.S. national security, Mr. Obama responded, “The concepts are not contradictory, they are complementary.” “His answer was just not clear,” said Clinton strategist Mark Penn, adding that the Constitution specifically requires presidents to protect the U.S.}}}}
Would anybody like to give me an example of one, just one, question that Shrillary Klintoon has ever given a “clear” answer to?
You can’t, not from that two faced dimwit.
And they still have the nerve to whine about Obama’s answer.
Unreal.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 4:05 PM | Link to this
RW,
LSU is tied 7-7 with Miss.
Miss. came to play today.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 4:08 PM | Link to this
duh,
She said national security is more important.
Clear enough for ya.
Geez.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 4:08 PM | Link to this
getalife, very good, the server crack. Also your support for Vanderbilt. My grandfather used to like to say, into his 90s, that he’d played for Vanderbilt (‘26) and that they hadn’t fielded a winning team since. At the time it was all true, in the sense that (a) the team had been in doldrums for a long time; (b) he’d played on the scrubs team at a designated punching bag for the first- and second-string players; and (c) they were at their all-time worst when he was there. At the end of his long life he finally confessed to me that he’d found only two people, out of hundreds, who’d figured out that the story was all about spin. He had a strange sense of humor.
By getalife
November 17, 2007 4:10 PM | Link to this
Miss. ran back a punt then LSU ran back the kick off.
14-7 LSU.
By Glenn
November 17, 2007 4:20 PM | Link to this
RW, excuse me, I just realized that I should’ve addressed that last one to you.
Luckodove, me a Lib? My Gawd no. I hate the very basis of liberalism, a little stink bomb called social instrumentalism. BTW, I just clued in a major-league consultant on the debate-rigging deal. He thinks it might be good for some web work and direct mail. We’ll see how resourceful they can be. The peeps, esp. the green idiots who take Dem TV debates with their wheat grass, don’t like to be had by sham games. Witness the outrage over crooked game shows of yesteryear. That’s how much heat the Axehead and Wolfie stand to get.
Thanks for the feedback on the Serrano question. What has the AJC been doing to mess with our First Amendment rights, other than insisting on keeping the tone and content “intelligent and witty”?
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 4:24 PM | Link to this
CBS is broadcasting the LSU game in HD, what a picture! 1080p. The third LSU cheerleader from the left is not wearing anything under her uniform skirt. I thought they banned astroturf from college football.
“That sandwich will need no pepper”. (gettysburg, the third day, during the cannonade preceding picket’s charge)
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 4:41 PM | Link to this
Glennduh, the liberal you hate so much is your own creation distilled from your own ignorance about who americans are, and how we were formed.
But continue to blog to yourself using identical syntactical rhythms so’s nobodies suspects a thing.
By Gen. Hancock
November 17, 2007 4:42 PM | Link to this
…of barrages and kings:
“There are times when a corps commander’s life does not count.”
By Glennduh
November 17, 2007 4:57 PM | Link to this
BikiniMeanie,
Why do you keep insisting that I’m hiding, or immitating Luckoduh? I don’t have anything to hide. (And putting “[Rudy 08]” at the end is usually a clue.) Nor do I hate liberals. Not a one. Hell, I worked for them for decades. It’s liberalism I truly hate; the very idea of it stands my hair on end. If I could find real fascism I’d probably hate that too, but liberalism is all around us and it creeps me out. Calling it progressivism is just worse, when one considers the sick history of the metaphysical idea of collective progress, institutionalized. Give me a rain prayer any day. Thanks for the compliment, though; I only wish I had Luckoduh’s resourcefulness.
By Bikini Bimbo
November 17, 2007 5:08 PM | Link to this
That’s right. Feed it to them. Feed it to their bellies.
The civil war was lost at the Seven Days by Lee’s Generals who refused to do what he ordered them to do. Lee had just arrived from assignment on the coast and didn’t understand how to communicate orders on a battlefield. Him and his confounded “if Practicable” phrase. That’s what cost the South independence.
By RW-(the original)
November 17, 2007 5:15 PM | Link to this
2:46 to go and Tennessee has just taken a 25-24 lead.
Damn those Commodore 64’S
By Frank Edwards
November 17, 2007 5:21 PM | Link to this
Bikini Bimbo, you can pretend all you want, but stay clear of the civil war. The war was lost at Sharpsburg, when Lee had his last chance to finish off McClellan who would have folded with any pressure at all. Instead of attacking with no mercy, Lee chose to slug it out. Attrition was the enemy for the south’s independence.
By Jerry P
November 17, 2007 5:27 PM | Link to this
The civil war was lost at Gettysburg. All Lee had to do was place his army between Meade and DC, and the union army would have used itself up in a repeat of Fredricksburg. Lee had the war in his hands that day, and blew it. I read somewhere that he had a bout w/diarrhea and just couldn’t get his blood up to see the opportunity at hand. this ruined Longstreet who did see the way to win, but could not refute his illogical commander.
By Glennduh
November 17, 2007 5:29 PM | Link to this
But remember that Lee was a curiously sensitive sort, who when he took ill didn’t think straight. His sensitivity and his illnesses were interrelated, probably. Anyway, quite unlike him to write vague and overbroad orders, against which he had counseled at W. Pt. I’d argue for Vicksburg, as it was the Western Campaign, hereabouts, which really broke the back I think. The E. Campaign tolled, the W. Campaign told. The cut-em-in-half phenomenon you name was as you know a reality by war’s end. By the time the Western remnant was chased up to Franklin the ink had dried up before it got onto the pages of the regularly written letters and daily journals. The site of barefoot men charging sometimes 100 abrest into modern artillery only to have their trunks separated from their lower extremities was too much in extremis for the Victorian euphemism and epistolary gingerbread that filled the vernacular writings. The gore and insanity was simply ineffable. No wonder most people have no sense of that war; it’s still too hot to touch except with irresponsible nostalgia, which is what got Hood’s addlepated fanatics cut down like wheat meeting the scythe.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 5:31 PM | Link to this
{{{{A Democratic senator on Saturday accused President Bush and congressional Republicans of hindering his party’s attempts to chart a new course in Iraq.}}}}
No kidding, the Marines are making it real hard for that al Qaeda victory you libs want so bad.
Mind your own business, you sniveling cowards.
By Jerry P
November 17, 2007 5:31 PM | Link to this
The civil war was lost at Gettysburg. All Lee had to do was place his army between Meade and DC, and the union army would have used itself up in a repeat of Fredricksburg. Lee had the war in his hands that day, and blew it. I read somewhere that he had a bout w/diarrhea and just couldn’t get his blood up to see the opportunity at hand. this ruined Longstreet who did see the way to win, but could not refute his illogical commander.
By Glennduh
November 17, 2007 5:35 PM | Link to this
Incidentally, the South didn’t have “independence” to lose. Lincoln fired generals for thinking that the South did have it. He said that he was going to join the battle on those terms, and he did, and he won, so he gets to prevail on this point. Like the man said, calling a tail a leg don’t make it a leg, and calling the South independent don’t make it independent, either. The victor’s prerogative and all that…
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 5:36 PM | Link to this
Look at this big fat lie:
{{{{Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed. This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent.}}}}
What a child, small stupid infantile idiot.
I know Barry did something nasty but I’m not telling.
What a dimwit.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 5:44 PM | Link to this
It just keeps getting better for America:
{{{{In the meantime, Hillary used the debate to spin her platitudes. One of them was a peon against unsafe toys. “We shouldn’t permit the import of unsafe toys,” she said in the debate. But her chief strategist, Mark Penn, is the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, the PR company that represents Aquadots, the company that makes the bead toys with an adhesive coating that turns into the date rape drug when children suck on it. Penn is paid by Burson based on a percentage of their profits, and Aquadots is an important contributor to their bottom line. But neither Blitzer nor any of Hillary’s Democratic opponents were alert enough to call the conflict into question.}}}}
Last week this was Bush’s fault, go figure.
Turns out Shrillary is the one actually importing harmful toys to America’s children.
Unbelievable.
Can this “woman” really be this stupid?
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 5:51 PM | Link to this
When the libs finally do tell you what they stand for, it turns out to be nothing but a lie:
{{{{HILLARY CLINTON talks of “our effort to change America.” Whatever change these presidential candidates are talking about is a mystery. As they pontificate in Iowa and New Hampshire, their fellow Democrats in Washington oink-oink away…..Six of the top 10 senators in defense campaign contributions in the 2006 election cycle were Democrats - Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Clinton…..In the 2008 election cycle, the industry is giving 52 percent of its contributions to Democrats. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Democrats now make up eight of the top 10 defense recipients. Dodd and Clinton are first…..The New York Times recently reported that members of the House earmarked an extra $1.8 billion to the military budget for projects the Pentagon did not request……The same party that complains about Bush’s no-bid contracts for Halliburton in Iraq is willing to maintain this system of funding local companies and programs that also face no competitive bidding.}}}}
By ray
November 17, 2007 5:53 PM | Link to this
great comedy today. had the south won it’s independence, the official language down here would have long ago been changed to spanish. morons.
By Polly
November 17, 2007 5:55 PM | Link to this
That’s why they’re starting to get cold feet over the Axehead. Dodd was alluding to it with his childish name-calling, to remind the NDC harda$ses that the people won’t in the end elect a bi-tch—excuse me, shrill person.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 5:55 PM | Link to this
Softballs away:
{{{{Under Wolf Blitzer’s gentle questioning, Hillary was able to avert another debate meltdown in the Nevada Democratic debate held last night, November 15. Asked about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, a compliant, even subservient, Blitzer accepted Hillary’s one word answer, “No,” with no follow up. Had a better journalist been asking the questions — like Tim Russert — he would have followed up the bland negation with probing questions about why she is yet again flip flopping on the issue.}}}}
{{{{The audience booed when candidates knocked Hillary, likely also a part of her defensive debate strategy.}}}}
The “audience” booed when the dumbas-s got asked questions?
Geez.
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 6:00 PM | Link to this
Classic Steyn:
{{{{If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It’s not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.}}}}
{{{{Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.}}}}
By TW
November 17, 2007 6:04 PM | Link to this
Glenn - you still haven’t got back to me concerning Citgo gas and whether or not some of the profit goes through Chavez before it gets to Giuliani. Any luck there? I must say, given your disposition on this blog, I have stepped back a little when looking over Giuliani’s potential (not that there’s much competetion - McCain and his drool bucket on one side, the flip-flopping Jeffs Romney on the other).
By Luckoduh
November 17, 2007 6:05 PM | Link to this
If Harry Reid’s own hometown newspaper hates his guts, what does that tell you?:
{{{{“The American people would rather have General (David) Petraeus running the war than members of Congress,” Ensign said. “We cannot, the 535 of us, set timelines. We cannot put strategy on the ground. That is what (Democrats) are trying to do by putting strings on the funding.”-LasVegasReviewJournal}}}}
By Demwit
November 17, 2007 6:17 PM | Link to this
I’ve been a lib my whole life and I voted for Bill Clinton both times, but I have a question for both Barak Obama and John Edwards-
If you’re just going to cower meekly before Hillary Clinton, why even bother running for president?
Are you scared of this idiot?
By @@
November 18, 2007 9:42 AM | Link to this
Going off “the road” here but this situation is rife for a discussion by liberals.
What do you do from a standpoint of:
Immigration.
Education of immigrants.
Language restrictions.
Wildlife conservation.
Community health.
Civil rights.
Cultural differences.
Religious freedoms.
Mental Health diagnosis.
Whose rights are being violated?
By @@
November 18, 2007 9:44 AM | Link to this
Whoops! forgot to link to the article.
Here ‘ya go…
U.S. trying to take monkey off the menu
By TW
November 18, 2007 9:52 AM | Link to this
Good morning @@ - not really sure want you want. Do you mean ‘liberal’ as in the dirty seven letter word created by Rush and Bill to line their pockets, or are you using ‘liberal’ correctly as, say, an adjective describing Jesus? You know, helping others, etc. etc…..
Also, thanks for yesterday - it was wonderful ;)
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 10:09 AM | Link to this
I read this interview this morning, laughed and thought of Goldie, who posts at Luckovich’s some.
Friday, we chuckled about the indignant response of one very far right wing bloggers there who took offense to her claim about the number of salacious stories on Fox News. And I quoted a couple of lines from Don Henley’s song, Dirty Laundry.
And lo and behold, he, Frey, Meisner, etc. are back in the news via a newly released Eagles CD.
For those of you who were, and still are, complete squares and were listening to Pat Boone back in 1972, the Eagles were a country cross over band who has a stellar sound, enormous talent, eclectic influences and, oh never mind…
HENLEY: Protest songs are an old tradition that seems to be coming back now. People writing about government has been going on since the Middle Ages. … But to hear some journalists tell it, this is like it’s never been done before, and it’s outrageous!
If people don’t agree with us, they can hit the skip button. We are ticked off about some things, but we also do some of it with humor. People seem to miss our humor. A lot. It seems to go (brushes side of his head with his hand).
CNN: But your politics are different than a lot of people in Nashville, who are more conservative than I would say you are.
HENLEY: Yeah. Well, Nashville is changing. Nashville is not nearly as conservative as it used to be.
CNN: People just don’t talk about it, perhaps.
HENLEY: It’s just like you don’t talk about religion and politics. This country was founded on rebellion. We believe that we are patriotic. We believe that everyone has the right to speak out. In fact, we believe that it’s unpatriotic not to speak out.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/16/don.henley/index.html
By ThongedTootsies
November 18, 2007 10:33 AM | Link to this
Beavers causing measurable CO2 emissions in South America? Unimmunized Students in North America facing Jailtime? Drought hysteria fueling a cold war between the States? Liquid explosives undetectable by our crack front-line screeners at airports?
Did I just describe the opening sequence to “Mad Max”? The finale of “An Iconvenient Truth”? Osama’s birthday-candle blow out wish? (now, Osama, are you going to eat it, play with it, or wear it and blow yourself up?)
No, these are non-partisan page-three news stories. Does everybody work for the post office now? We should have let the owls deliver the mail when we had owls.
The problem with the world today is that nobody gives a hoot.
Stay tuned for more, my wife is coming and she hates to see me blogging. I’ll be back, ashules. Darn, too late……
….”Yes dear. No, I’m not blogging, I’m searching for jobs on the internet on AJC.JOBS.COM. Oh, look, here’s a job with the AJC! I think I’ll apply. Oh look, it’s a proofreader for Cynthia Tucker. Yes, she the one who was ruined by winning every writer’s dream, the Pulitzer. I mean, why try anymore? You won the pulitzer! Today she ends her article with a conclusion that she didn’t earn in the body of the piece. “It’s not too late…but….”
How does Cynthia know that it’s not too late? This is why you shouldn’t allow yourself to believe anyone’s critiques when you’re a writer. Seinfeld got too popular, and he’s just not funny anymore. Bee Movie? I can just hear his initial opening thoughts as he asked if there were any cartoon-movies about bees… “Bees have an industry, they dance, they can fly, I’ve always wanted to fly. Every kid wants to fly. It’s perfect! (no, jerry, its not even a one joke movie, it’s a no joke hoax, now get lost).
Jerry’s gone all Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks scored big with Frankenstein, but one only has to look at Spaceballs to see what can go wrong…. go wrong….go wrong….
My wife bought it! Okay, where did it all start to go wrong? Sifty years ago when the Rosenbergs sold us out? 55 years ago when we didn’t nuke China like Macarthur wanted? 40 years ago when I started the naked conga line at the orginial woodstock?
Dabbit! My wife again……yes dear, I got the job, but then I got fired when they realized I was the PIA blogger toruring everyone…D’OH!
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 10:37 AM | Link to this
Heidi everbody.
TW, I have a progress report on our project, if you’d like it. (At one point I wasted a couple of days investigating the wrong guy, who turned out to be the father and namesake of the right guy, who’d followed in Daddy’s footsteps in the same city.) Otherwise I’ll need more time to untangle the convoluted accusations by running down some remaining sources. I reached my own conclusion some time ago, but don’t want to give you an unsolicited opinion that might color your judgment of the facts.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 10:45 AM | Link to this
@@,
Please don’t limit your answer to TW’s two options for defining “liberal”. TW’s tendiousness being beneath comment—except to say shame on you, TW!—I’d suggest at least a third option: to me a liberal is someone who finds social engineering irresistable.
By @@
November 18, 2007 10:49 AM | Link to this
TW @ 9:52:
Good morning @@ - not really sure want you want.
Good morning to you as well TW. Feeling a little intellectually handcuffed today are ‘ya?
Immigration — Do Americans have the right to expect or demand assimilation into our culure?
Education — The woman in the article has been here since she was 16 yrs old. How is it that she can claim ignorance of reading, writing and comprehension skills.
Language — Can we require that Manneh learn to read, write, verbally communicate and cognitively comprehend our english?
Wildlife conservation — Do conservationists/environmentalists have the right to deny this West African culture their menu preferences?
Community health — Although bushmeats are imported legally into this country, is it our government’s responsibility to educate this culture of its availability. If the cost of the bushmeat is expensive, does Manneh have the right to expose the community to an outbreak of ebola because her customers can’t afford it? Should the government demand a decrease in its price?
Civil rights — Human or natural? Do they extend beyond territorial boundaries or are they written and derived from custom or implied as we do here in the U.S.?
Cultural differences — Can they include what we eat even though it puts the community’s health at risk and violates wildlife conservation?
Religious freedoms — If, as Manneh says bushmeat is part of their religious practices; does the government have the right to deny them?
Mental health — Manneh said the government’s case has caused so much stress she’s suicidal. She’s been diagnosed as schizophrenic after intentionally running over some woman in a parking lot. In West Africa, can you attempt to murder a woman who’s fooling around with your husband? I don’t know, I’m asking. It may be a cultural thing.
In lite of her diagnosis, is she suffering cruel and unusual punishment serving two years in prison?
Which far left group would/could/should come to Manneh’s defense and in protection of which rights would/could/should they argue their case.
Is Manneh a victim or a con artist and what would be the social backlash for calling her either/or?
The more complicated laws become the more likely they are to be misused and abused.
I’m a firm believer in the KISS principle.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 11:10 AM | Link to this
Hi Amvet,
That’s interesting, what Henley said about protest songs. I’d awaited the new album eagerly, via the Wal-Mart website, and to my surprise when it came out I didn’t buy it because it flawlessly reproduces their old sound(s). That re-enactment was what I, like all the rest, had been hoping for, but in the event it sounded anything—everything—but fresh.
I think “Desperado” was their one perfect song, of scores of near-perfect ones; the one that won’t fade over time. My favorite of Henley’s solo stuff is, you guessed it, “Dirty Laundry”. The lyrics are so lethal! I just marvel at the righteous anger of e.g. “Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know the boys in the newsroom got a running bet. Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry!”
Henley can get pretty highfalutin, and your quote about the grand high purpose of protest music in a constitutional republic is typical of the unlettered self-importance to which the entertainment industry is prone, but, as with “Dirty Laundry”, Henley puts his mouth where his money is. A song like that is indeed an exemplary exercise of our most necessary liberties.
In Prague they know very well the power of protest music.
Think of what Henley could do were he really miffed about the staging & rigging of the Nov. 15 Dem. debate!
[Rudy 08]
By RW-(the original)
November 18, 2007 11:11 AM | Link to this
So when one looks back at Friday’s luckovich blog they see that Goldie first mentions Fox at 8:56 AM. There is one comment alluding to whether she wants censorship and then she mentions Fox again at 9:24 with a link to their penchant for using sex in their stories, primarily on the Cavuto business program.
Two comments follow that 9:24, neither talking about Fox News and at 9:28 Blowhard bores us to tears and then tacks on some lyrics from Dirty Laundry.
What does that prove, other than that I have too much time on my hands this morning? It proves once again that Blowhard (this week going by such names as AmVet and Gold Star Mom) is a bald faced liar and never to be trusted.
By @@
November 18, 2007 11:13 AM | Link to this
Glenn:
When TW posed the question asking me to define liberal, I was thinking more in terms of “all things in excess”. An “abundance” of BS so to speak.
By ThongedTootsies
November 18, 2007 11:14 AM | Link to this
Deepthroat told Woodward and Berstein that “You’re missing the big picture. Who did the Republicans want to run against? Who did they end up running against?”.
I’ve always thought Deepthroat meant that Nixon was the target; that Nixon was the big picture. But that’s not what he meant. I just realized now what he implied: that the republican machine had been manipulating elections by hook or crook for years and would continue to do so. Perhaps the Post was unwilling to speculate about the depth of the corruption. Look how Nixon thought he could simply fire the special prosecutor in the saturday night massacre. Look how Nixon believed that he could abuse the justice department. In plain view, Nixon’s casual arrogance of power informs us now just how far off track our government had strayed.
The cold reality is that nothing has changed. Nixon was instructing future adminstrations how not to get caught.
In those Frost interviews after the fact, Nixon appeared to have realized that he might have gotten away with all of it if he had simply pardoned everyone. A lightbulb went off in his countenance as his wheels turned on live television. “Why, I could have just pardoned, them….”
I was in my mid twenties then and knew what a shmoe Nixon had just revealed himself to be, and I was heartsick that such a man could become president. That’s when I swore I’d take over der verld using a little known venue called the AlGorenet. I’m so close. All I need to do is blog three more words and der verld is mine, well here goes: Klatu Mirada Nicktoe
I rule!
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 11:16 AM | Link to this
@@, dassagootwong.
By TW
November 18, 2007 11:18 AM | Link to this
Glenn - thanks for the update! Your efforts are greatly appreciated!
@@ - You still didn’t define ‘leberal’ - kind of need that info for your Faux News, kids menu of a project.
I mean, would it be fair for me to, say, send you the same questions with a ‘conservative’ David Duke article as the backdrop?
Yesterday I was your ‘hostage’ - and today you’ve ‘handcuffed me’! Love it! We might have to meet ;)
Have a great day all!
By RW-(the original)
November 18, 2007 11:21 AM | Link to this
If Desperado by the Eagles or any of the thirteen covers that various artists have released of the song doesn’t quite do it for you, you might want to try the hard to find version named Avocado by Weird Al Yankovich.
By getalife
November 18, 2007 11:26 AM | Link to this
RW,
is a bald faced liar and never to be trusted.
Yet, you trust the gop crooks and liars and everything they spew.
Pot to kettle.
Anyhoo, damn shame Vandy missed that field goal.
By RW-(the original)
November 18, 2007 11:33 AM | Link to this
getalife,
I think you know by now that I generally distrust politicians of any stripe. Scooter that used to post at these blogs used to say something like Democrats wanted us on the fast track to socialism and Republicans were just taking a slower route to the same destination. That sums up my feelings as well.
That field goal was awfully close, but Vandy screwed up when they never got any closer after running the kickoff back to that spot. It was like they were content to try a 49 yarder.
GEAUX KENTUCKY!
By ThongedTootsies
November 18, 2007 11:37 AM | Link to this
Remember when the actor who played “Billy Jack” ran for prez? He actually gleaned some grassroots support from fans of that movie who believed in his persona of an uncorruptible rogue who could bring some common sense change to a country where “we license our dogs, cats, and cars, but not our guns…”
billy jack actually made it to a prime time live interview, where the reporter managed to push his buttons and he lost his temper and practically came to blows, billy jack style. How dare the reporter impugn billy jack’s credibility? I’ve never seen a man fall apart quite like that, in fact, I was actually afraid that billy jack might karate chop this poor reporter to death just like he did in the movie.
Well, that was the end of the billy jack administration, and of course, the whole episode made Abu Nidal look like Akhmed Ninnyjihad, and that’s how we got caught with our pants down a few years later on 911, but that’s another story for Glennduh to lie about.
the repudlickans are evil. Dont vote for them, or we’ll be the great satan, instead lets vote for democrats. They’re good. they’re nice. Vote for good, nice people. Vote for democrats.
(what about McCain?) McCain is a repudlickan, he’s not good, and he’s not nice.
(what about Guilliani?) Guilliani is not good, and he’s not nice, he’s a repudlickan.
(what about actors?) Actors are morons. Dont vote for them.
By getalife
November 18, 2007 11:38 AM | Link to this
RW,
Yep, too conservatative.
Should of been more liberal and went for one first down.
Armchair coaches,
Geez.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 11:42 AM | Link to this
@@, sinced TW apparently bagged, would you mind if I, a Medieval tradtionalist, took up your interesting challenge? (I’d promise to keep it short.)
By getalife
November 18, 2007 11:44 AM | Link to this
repudlickans
Where did ya hack that PF?
Bwa.
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 11:46 AM | Link to this
Hey Glenn,
I’ve not heard ANY of it yet but am not surprised, though somewhat disappointed, that they kept that same formulaic sound, probably only slightly updated.
For me, the best of the best are those bands who could continually reinvent their sound but keep getting better, more relevant and more compelling at the same time.
I guess the Beatles kind of ruined it for many of us in that regard.
Are any of the young rockers protesting these days?
Gawd knows with this inept administration there is certainly no lack of material.
BTW, though only moderately interested in his stuff, has anyone here (besides the trolls and rectal wipes) heard any of the new Springsteen stuff?
By ThongedTootsies
November 18, 2007 11:55 AM | Link to this
For Barry Bonds to be innocent, he would have to use the “Incredible Hulk” defense. The mild-mannered man who turns into the incredible hulk didn’t know about what was happening to him. Neither did Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Heckle. Neither did I when I turned myself from thesaurus-abusing pulp-fiction hack to one of the most influential writers in der verld today.
I love that story.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 12:02 PM | Link to this
Amvet, have not heard the Springsteen stuff with E St. B, but did hear his last collection of Guthrie covers. Almost as good as Ry Cooder would’ve been had he done it.
Yes, lot’s of young’n’s doing protest music, especially reel after reel of burnt offerings to The Green Man, Son of Gaia. Less protest in new Country, but there you can find both left and right. When the God-and- Country wing gets patriotic, they often do it as a blustery in-your-face at the greenies. Then we have the anything but interesting case of the Dixie Chicks.
But protest is still the province of folkies, who are amidst a revival and as plaintive as ever.
By @@
November 18, 2007 12:04 PM | Link to this
Too funny. TW, you put it in quotes so it jumped out at me…
@@ - You still didn’t define ‘leberal’ - kind of need that info for your Faux News, kids menu of a project.
I googled leberal just for fun and found this post in a “New York Sun” comment section. AmVet isn’t gonna like it but here goes…
As a Hollywood Leberal I’m actually thrilled with the thought of Giuliani as President. Someone who truly respects the right of people to live and love as they wish, who recognizes the religious right as the sinners they often (not always AmVet) are, and someone who makes Middle America seem safe, will do for me.
Is that Hollywood leberal a conservative or are many conservatives more socially liberal than AmVet gives us credit for.
Glenn @ 11:42:
Go for it! I may not be able to discuss it with you. I’m in the process of painting my den. I love to come across articles such as the one I linked to it displays how complicated legal issues have with the help (cough cough) of the ACLU and far left activists groups.
By ThongedTootsies
November 18, 2007 12:06 PM | Link to this
I’m glad you like the material, peoples. Feel free to steal. Then folks’ll think that YOU’RE the geniuses instead of the unpoulticed pustules of depravity you truly are.
‘muff said
By ThongedTootsies
November 18, 2007 12:26 PM | Link to this
It’s not fair that the Falcons are always on Fox; they dont broadcast in 1080p. Totally unfair. Where’s billy jack when you need him?
Worse, my wife is making me go to a brunch at three. I’m going to miss most of the game.
I need someone to step forward and rescue me from my life. Do you all realize what will happen if my wife finds the beer hat?
SOS…—-…SOS…—-…SOS…—-…
By PaintByNumbers
November 18, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this
I agree that the governor is in the driver’s seat on transportation.
By Luckoduh
November 18, 2007 12:50 PM | Link to this
{{{{“But in the interest of our party, and her own reputation, Sen. Clinton should either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none. She of all people, having complained so often about the politics of personal destruction, should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics.” Obama even described the alleged smear as “old ‘Swift Boat’ politics.”}}}}
Yes, it is time that we came clean, somebody’s lying.
Would it be Novak?
Why?
This is something that a mere child would do, an idiot grade school student, so that means it was most likely Shrillary.
This one’s going to be fun.
~~~~~~
Liberals are unable to comprehend policy issues so the Urinal has to feed them idiotic fever swamp conspiracy theories to gin them up:
{{{{Countdown 2008: ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE: Giuliani critics dispute 9/11 role-Urinal}}}}
Pardon me, but how exactly does the Atlanta Urinal Constitution differ from the Rush Limbaugh show, I forget exactly?
Is it that Rush doesn’t lie about his slobbering partisanship, was that it?
~~~~~~
Look at George Will, slapping around the only woman running for president on the democrat party ticket:
{{{{Within Juanita Edwards’ lucrative trial bar constituency, there has been a flurry of criminal indictments. Their target has been what Fortune magazine calls the law firm of Hubris Hypocrisy and Greed. The real name of the nation’s foremost securities class-action firm is Milberg Weiss.}}}}
Piling on! Piling on the woman!
{{{{Since 1965, the firm has won, often by tactics indistinguishable from extortion, $45 billion from corporations —- more than $1 billion a year for plaintiffs claiming to have been cheated as investors. Plaintiffs firms such as Milberg Weiss are paid contingency fees —- they are paid only if they win, but up to 30 percent of what is won. Mel Weiss, whose case is going to trial, and his former partner, Bill Lerach, who specialized in volatile stocks of Silicon Valley companies in the 1990s and is now going to jail, each pocketed —- it would be strange to say they earned —- more than $100 million in the 1990s. The firm itself has been charged with paying $11.4 million to three serial plaintiffs who testified in 180 cases over 25 years, claiming to have been repeatedly defrauded.}}}}
Now I know how Ms. Edwards met all those poor people, it was folks that he stole all their money from.
~~~~~~
Oh yes, this is just what America needs:
{{{{U.N. urges quick action on climate- Secretary-general says U.S., China must do more to help head off global disaster.-Urinal}}}}
Translated from pinkospeak that means tax the United States to death.
~~~~~~
Today’s cartoon that doesn’t suck!
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 12:58 PM | Link to this
TasseledPasties,
I’ll do what they taught us to do when composing political mailers: use one-sentence paragraphs…
So, moving from ridiculous to sublime, and back again…
The bit about Obama as Birthday Boy is a winner, as that’s just the kind of corrective he needs: Now Barry…
I never could figure out how one could have one’s cake and eat it too, and apparently the Canadians were in my mucklucks because they say, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.”
This however is not to open the mental file marked “cake”, as that would contain unsavories such as the image of the sublimely subtle semiotician Bud McFarland stepping down onto the tarmac bearing a Bible in one hand and in the other, a cake baked in the shape of a key…
The prologue to “Mad Max” is not “where did we go wrong” because the historical record tells of our going right, wrong, right, wrong, right-and-wrong, wronger, rightest, wrong-wrong, right, wrong, wrong, right, wrong, wrong—or something like that…
All we can do is sing the Marty Hop…
Now moderns do the dans macabre of Nietschean narcissism, and superexistentialisticgaiamysticism: “‘Embrace Your Fate’ as you await the final cataclism!”
Tom something…
The “Billy Jack” guru…
McLaughlin, I think…
Had he not climaxed prematurely he’d be in a compound in Sedona now, spending other people’s life savings and moving through his harem in descending order of age…
As one who will never forget HST’s remark that Nixon was so corkscrew crooked that even his funeral was illegal, I still think that Nixon the Quaker Mama’s Boy learned “the rules of the game”, as he put it to Sir David of Fleet Street, the hard way, and that the old thug Joe Kennedy paid his tuition, beginning with Bobby’s law school fees…
The Hulk Defense is probably right, but it won’t work this time…
I used to call that excusatorial vs. prosecutorial “the Officer Krupke Defense”, in tribute to “W. Side Story”…
God Bless Stephen Sondheim…
I hope the plague didn’t get him…
I knew his former partner Dan, who was Patient No. 2 and the first guinea pig since P1 died immediately whereas Dan lasted seven years, the poor pin cushion…
Answer: With two hookers a rabbi and a parrot…
Question: How do you fit thesaurus abuse into pulp fiction…
[Rudy 08…]
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 1:05 PM | Link to this
Luckoduh,
You’ve got a lot of nerve blogging like that given what I know about you, which is something I’m too “intelligent and witty” and decidedly not-shrill to say…
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 1:14 PM | Link to this
Glenn,
Country musicians who protest?! Wowzers! I ALWAYS thought there was some unwritten code prohibiting that, which was ultimately appended by Merle Haggard and later, Lee Greenwood.
My “country phase” lasted about two weeks way back in the days of Waylon & Willie.
I’m just a country-born and raised rocker at heart.
OK, the roof is leaf free (for now) and the front yard and driveway are getting there. Reminds me of the Shatner line on that recent classic “Has Been” - “The leaf blowers. Is there anything more futile?”
And now that AmVet Jr. is in boot camp, my yard crew is…..me.
I guess I could help out the Mexican AND American economies and go down to the Home Depot and find a couple of undocumenteds, er, I mean, illegals, and save the “sweat equity”.
Nah……
By Phil
November 18, 2007 1:23 PM | Link to this
To Bikini Bimbo @November 17, 2007 10:40 AM
I love you.
By @@
November 18, 2007 2:35 PM | Link to this
I’ve always been a big fan of the folkies — Woody and Arlo, Ochs and my all time favorite…Dylan who had this to say:
“What good are fans? You can’t eat applause for breakfast. You can’t sleep with it.”
Dylan — ‘Ya gotta love the guy’s honesty.
Protest songs appeal to the ideal not the reality. Dreamers wish the messages would come true. Realists know it’s not possible.
You can’t play softball when another country wants to play hardball.
When it comes to musical groups who sing songs in protest you have to ask yourself…realistically; does every member of that group share the political sentiments within the song?
Probably not…they’re money-makers…evil capitalists with a bottom line. All they need to meet that bottom line is dupes who believe in their musical message is real.
The laugh’s on the fans but the music IS great.
I saw Springsteen interviewed recently. He ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed but then he only has to be smarter than his fans now doesn’t he?
Always liked Springsteen but his wife Patti Scialfa is much better.
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 3:25 PM | Link to this
That head scratching, captivating Rolling Stone worthy article just posted, made me wonder how incredibly conflicted these Republicans and other assorted squares must be when they listened to long haired liberal hippy music.
So with that in mind here are some of the neo-con’s “Reality” hits:
Darth Cheney and the Evil Street Band - All we are Saying is Give War a Chance and Eve of Destruction (Hopefully).
Country George and the Fish Symbols - “The “Fish” Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Kill- a-Bunch-of-People Rag”
Dick Zimmerman Rumsfeld and the Soon to be Dead - Mushroom Clouds Blowin’ in the Wind, The Lies They are A-Changing and If I Had a Hammer (Love Ode to Tom Delay)
Condi Rice and Public Enemas - Fight the Power (Screw the People)
By Jackie
November 18, 2007 3:38 PM | Link to this
The State Dept. Inspector General is under investigation as it was determine that he was not forthcoming in his review of the Blackwater scandal. Turns out his brother is on the board of Blackwater, who the FBI has said essentially murdered innocent Iraqi women and children, yet Condi Rice gave them immunity for their testimony. Secondly, these same mercenaries were given non-bid contracts in excess of $700 million dollars. Keep in mind, these are the same people that stood down AMERICAN GI’s in Iraq, disarmed them, made them to lie on the ground while they “protected” the embassy and other facilities. A US Army brigade commander had to “negotiate” with Blackwater to have his soldiers released from their custody. If it were me in charge of that brigade, they would not have had a chance to answer anything. I would have brought the full power of the US Army to bear on their hips, without hesitation.
By Jackie
November 18, 2007 3:52 PM | Link to this
With the criminals in the White House, wonders never cease. Turns out the FBI was using comparative analysis to determine if the bullet fragments found in a victim were the same as those being analyzed by machine and manufacturing marks. National Academy of Science and the FBI concluded the technique was invalid, especially in the case of conviction. Two years after this was deemed to unworthy of meeting evidenceciary standards, the FBI still has not informed those convicted of crimes using these techniques and many of these individuals time to appeal will expire. Alberto Gonzalez was the person with administrative control of the FBI and other Federal law enforcement agencies. Mr. Mukasey has the opportunity to right some of those egregious wrongs before Dubya leaves. Keep your fingers crossed.
By TW
November 18, 2007 4:06 PM | Link to this
@@ - oops. I made a typo - many apologies for throwing you for what appears to have been a serious loop! I meant to spell liberal. Don’t use the word alot, don’t really know what it means.
But since you’re in the helping mood, I do need some. Again , this weekend, about an hour ago down off Roswell Rd., there was a group of older folks collecting donations for some kind of center that’s putting together a Thanksgiving feast for those who can’t ‘afford it.’ Anyhow, in an attempt to reach across the aisle, I told the guy that those people probably would be able to ‘afford it’ if they got a freaking job, and didn’t spend what little money they already had on crack and such. I told him rather than canned food they ought to be collecting books on how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and quit sucking off MY hard earned coin. Then he started to say something about disabilities or soemthing, so cut him off and told him he didn’t support the troops. Anyhow, @@, I now feel kind of bad about what I said and was hoping you could help me get through my moment of weakness. What do you suggest? Maybe an extra $20 in the plate tonight? Please help.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 4:24 PM | Link to this
Phil,
I worry about you. Either you’re into blogiterary Onanism or you’re really Sonny Purdue a-lovin’ back on Bikiniischkadiddle.
Amvet,
I call your attention to Exibit A, Toby Keith’s boot. I too favor Rock (and Jazz), but I especially like intelligent Folk Rock—at the disappearing horizon line of Folk->Rock—and the Country Rock of 1972-73, when the Eagles, following the lead of the ill-fated Gram Parsons, were California’s (slick production) entry in that category. Both the folkish and the rustic styles of Rock evidently are deceptively difficult to do well.
Thank you for not hypocritically exploiting illegal labor, as I’ve done for years. But only because I like the idea of supporting Mexico, of course. I do it for them. They deserve it. It’s the least I could do. It’s one thing to oppose them as a whole, but when you’re dealing with one of them face-to-face and you realize that he or she has all those adorable dirty-faced boys and jamaica-cheeked girls, with those big brown puppy-dog eyes on black velvet, well, I mean how could you not do a deal under the table with somebody in that predicament? We’re all a part of humanity, after all, and we share equal guilt for our venal insults of Gaia the All-Giver. So when I think of these things, and realize that I am but an ant on this big blue ball, I break down and shove a TX bankroll into my jeans and head for Home Depot. Like I say, it’s for them.
@@, I’m still working on your challenge. I knew nothing of Pattie Scialfa, but will look her up when I’ve completed my homework. I too am a lifelong member of the Dylan cult. My oldest brother, a literary editor, biographer and anthologist, since 1965 has had a consuming love of two things, neither of which alas is his wife: fine literature and Bob Dylan.
Your Dylan quote is good, it’s degree of goodness depending on which Dylan persona he was wearing at the time, but the second part is of course not true. Which leads me to think that it was either Folk Music Bob or Sacred Music Bob doing the talking, and not Rock’n’Roll Bob or Country Music Bob or Blues Bob or even Bobby Zimmerman, because any of those would not have been able to make the statement about not being able to sleep with fandom.
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 4:31 PM | Link to this
More non-dreamer tunes:
Larry Craig & Dusk - Knock Three Times (On the Stall Door If you Want Me)
John Ashcroft’s Spirit - I Got a Line On You
More from Country George & The Fish Symbols - Fortunate Son (The Texas ANG Song)
Rudy & The Kericks - O Solo Mio!
Sonny & Cher Purdue - Raindrops Ain’t Falling on My Head
By getalife
November 18, 2007 4:31 PM | Link to this
In his first Inaugural Address, Ronald Reagan remarked that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” While the quip has provided Republicans with a cheap slogan for two decades, the philosophy behind it is beginning to box them in. If they govern effectively, they invalidate their own antigovernment ideology. And when you elect people who believe that government won’t work, you shouldn’t be surprised when government stops working.
Amen kos.
By @@
November 18, 2007 4:33 PM | Link to this
Gosh TW, thanks for sharing now here’s a true story.
I often find myself on University Avenue on my way to Metropolitan because I’ve got friends who live off of The Metro.
Anyhoo, there’s this one spot where the exit ramp meets University, there’s always a lot of panhandling going on there. I’m always generous with my loose change if I don’t have any change a bill or two will do. The thing I find most interesting is there’s this one guy who moves up and down University. If he can catch me at a red light his story is always the same. He just lost his job last week and is down and out…needs a couple of bucks to get something to eat.
Funny thing is he’s been telling that same tale for months now….bout how he lost his job just last week. He still gets my loose change because I’m obviously dealing with one of the “Loose Change” crowd.
My advice? Do whatever you want. I’m not your spiritual advisor and neither are you mine.
By Owen37
November 18, 2007 4:44 PM | Link to this
I spent last Thanksgiving prepping and serving at Salvation Army. First time I did that. We served a little over 1,000 plus turkey dinners. Alot of the diners were young mothers and their kids who came in to save money because of husbands that were in the military over seas. You people might want to try it if you don’t have other plans at this point in time. It’s kind of fun once you get use to it. This year I got family but anyway I may go and help at Christmas.
By TW
November 18, 2007 4:45 PM | Link to this
@@ - your ability to recognize my right to privacy is most refreshing. Thanks!
By Phil
November 18, 2007 4:50 PM | Link to this
Not to worry, Glen. I am quite in possession of my faculties and I believe Bikini Bimbo is as well. I just thought BB’s musing was deserving of a simple HURA - Phil style.
On another topic, How do you spell (congestion) relief?
Answer: $10.00/Gallon
By Luckoduh
November 18, 2007 4:55 PM | Link to this
{{{{Al-Qaida’s support in the Muslim world has plummeted, partly because of the terror group’s lack of success in Iraq, more because al-Qaida’s attacks have mostly killed Muslim civilians.}}}}
{{{{“Iraq has proved to be the graveyard, not just of many al-Qaida operatives, but of the organization’s reputation as a defender of Islam,” said StrategyPage.}}}}
So ask yourself, why do the Code Pinkos in Congress want to surrender?
Which side are they on?
{{{{“The situation has changed so unmistakably and so swiftly that we should be reading proud headlines daily,” said Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “Where are they?”}}}}
{{{{“We’ve won the war in the real Iraq, but few people in America are familiar with anything other than its make-believe version,” said the Mudville Gazette’s “Greyhawk,” a soldier currently serving his second tour in Iraq.}}}}
By @@
November 18, 2007 4:57 PM | Link to this
Glenn:
“You can’t sleep with the applause unless you’re very creative. Let’s not go there O.K.?
AmVet:
I’d bet money you think Springsteen’s “Glory Days” was written about you and for you.
Another one of my favorites — Paul Simon and “Late In The Evening”.
Love that song!
By RW-(the original)
November 18, 2007 5:10 PM | Link to this
@@,
From Glory Days:
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory of, well time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister but boring stories of glory days.
I think a case could be made that Glory Days was written about Blowhard.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 5:15 PM | Link to this
BikiniMeanieMiney + Sonny = Luuuuuv.
Full-on Barry White (RIP) Luuuuuuuv.
Phil,
Should gas be taxed till it reaches ten clams? If so, what should gubmint do with the (diminishing) windfall?
Can we count on, per getalife, Cheney’s oilmen to spike the price to ten smackers?
When gas costs ten bills, will Jim still be anthropomorphizing all those adorable roadways too faithful to go out on strike?
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 5:21 PM | Link to this
Glenn, Ry Cooder and Graham Parsons. You do know your rock roots
Boobs, when it comes to music, I am unabashedly old school.
As for themes songs for you, look up the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s Pigs (Three Different Ones). Great, great stuff.
And for his own mental health, Rectal Wipe needs to quit obsessing over me. He acts like a teenage girl who has been jilted.
As our cajun friend’s name suggests that kid needs to get a life.
By CJ
November 18, 2007 5:25 PM | Link to this
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Sonny to do something about our traffic woes. People in these AJC forums, myself included, constantly beg for solutions. We request the same ones over and over. Once again: - An extensive train system that utilizes existing freight lines, which realizes a major cost savings for expansion. - A northern arc, so that I-75 south traffic trying to reach I-85 north (and vice verse) can do so without clogging up Atlanta proper. - Re-route I-75 and I-85 around the city rather than straight through it. Rename the downtown connector and redesign it to the equivalent of a surface street boulevard.
By Luckoduh
November 18, 2007 5:27 PM | Link to this
{{{{I have long suspected that Obama, the senator from Illinois, is the only Democrat who can win the general election in 2008. The other senators in the ring voted for the war in Iraq before they were against it. While that flip-flop may play with Democratic primary voters, it is a loser in a general election. After all, U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians don’t get a do-over.}}}}
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 5:30 PM | Link to this
@@,
Oh. Well then, as Miss Emily Latilla used to say, “Nevermind.”
Paul Simon’s masterful. I concur on “Late in the Evening”. It sounds like it would be a blast to perform with friends. It’s interesting how when PS gets musicological he’s always upbeat, e.g. the Samba-like quality of “Late”. I think it reflects his almost patronizing affection for the music of other cultures. When he wants to write melancholically about e.g. the difficulties of love, he writes slow American stuff, pure & ostensibly simple. Like whiskey ballads or even torch songs in Pop, instead of Jazz, form. I dig both of those approaches of his.
By Phil
November 18, 2007 5:30 PM | Link to this
Glenn,
A tax on goods is a tax on goods - whether it be a 50 cent trinket from Taiwan or a 100 dollar barrel from Iran.
Do Cheney’s oilmen know anything about running a profitable hedge fund?
We all do what we got to do to do what we do (until we don’t do it any more)
By getalife
November 18, 2007 5:30 PM | Link to this
From the Boss’s latest work “The Last To Die”:
“Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake The last to die for a mistake Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break Who’ll be the last to die
Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake The last to die for a mistake Darlin’ your tyrants and kings fall to the same fate Strung up at your city gates And you’re the last to die for a mistake”
By @@
November 18, 2007 5:45 PM | Link to this
RW:
By Golly, I think you’re right about “Glory Days”.
AmVet:
Boobs, when it comes to music, I am unabashedly old school.
and you have yet to graduate beyond anything other than the schoolyard bully.
Excuuuuse me but I believe it’s you who enters ml’s constantly pointing out that Luckoduh posts early and frequent. And you say Luckoduh obsesses? You wish….
Who’s obsessing and has been obsessing for going on three years Huge/AmVet? Don’t try to peddle your crap with me — you’re a dishonest salesman by reputation and I’m not buying.
Glenn:
Simon’s “Graceland” and “Rhythm of the Saints” (Brazillian drums) is a must listen. Dylan’s newest CD “Modern Times” is great.
I’m a Leon Redbone fan as well.
I’m more into solo performers than I am group anything. I’m enjoying Nora Jones of late. She’s an exceptionally talented artist.
By RW-(the original)
November 18, 2007 5:48 PM | Link to this
Graham Parsons???
Blowhard,
Let me help you out here. Gram Parsons was born Cecil Ingram Connor III. When his mother married a man named Parsons he took on the surname and Gram is short for Ingram.
By AmVet
November 18, 2007 5:54 PM | Link to this
getalife, these neo-cons should never listen too carefully to rock & roll. They might realize the people who wrote those songs are the polar political opposites of them and their demented 1950’s world view.
Speaking of which, here are those Floyd lyrics, just for Boobs, from one of their many spectacular songs:
Bus stop rat bag, ha ha charade you are.
You f@@ked up old hag, ha ha charade you are.
You radiate cold shafts of broken glass.
You’re nearly a good laugh, Almost worth a quick grin.
You like the feel of steel, You’re hot stuff with a hatpin, And good fun with a hand gun.
You’re nearly a laugh,
You’re nearly a laugh
But you’re really a cry.
And for her bosom buddy, from the same song:
Big man, pig man, ha ha charade you are.
You well heeled big wheel, ha ha charade you are.
And when your hand is on your heart,
You’re nearly a good laugh, Almost a joker,
With your head down in the pig bin, Saying “Keep on digging.”
Pig stain on your fat chin.
What do you hope to find.
When you’re down in the pig mine.
You’re nearly a laugh,
You’re nearly a laugh
But you’re really a cry.
P.S. Nora Jones couldn’t carry Ravi Shankar’s sitar-shaped jockstrap…
Pray for rain, charades.
By Luckoduh
November 18, 2007 5:58 PM | Link to this
{{{{It is far too early to declare victory but you would think that all Americans and Australians, regardless of whether they supported the war in Iraq or not, would want to stick with a strategy that is delivering peace and security to a people who have suffered not just 4 1/2 years of a brutal insurgency but also three decades of tyranny and war. Yet some Democrats in the US, as with some on the Left in Australia, are still determined to lose the war if possible by withdrawing troops, even when success is starting to appear to be within reach. Undaunted by the fact that there has been an improvement in Iraq, Democratic staffers on Congress’s Joint Economic Committee are trying to generate more bad headlines by focusing on the cost of the war, which they calculated would reach $US3.5 trillion by 2017. To arrive at such a massive total, the committee threw in everything they could think of, including their best guesses at the Iraq war’s impact on oil prices and other economic factors.}}}}
{{{{The sad fact is that for most of the anti-war Left, the only thing that matters is delivering a defeat to the Bush administration, and in achieving that end the Iraqi people are expendable. John Pilger said in January 2004 that while he didn’t like the “terrible civilian atrocities” committed by what he called “the resistance”, “the outcome of this resistance is terribly important for the rest of the world” and that only a defeat in Iraq of the US “military machine” and the Bush administration would make our world secure. As Christopher Hitchens wrote despairingly in 2005 of his erstwhile friends on the Left, while there is plenty of support for debt relief and making poverty history in Africa, there isn’t a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq.}}}}
{{{{The anti-war, anti-American Left should be ashamed, but precisely for this reason they continue to look away when Iraq doesn’t fail in the way they wish. The success of the surge has become their inconvenient truth.}}}}
By @@
November 18, 2007 6:08 PM | Link to this
P.S. Nora Jones couldn’t carry Ravi Shankar’s sitar-shaped jockstrap…
Funny AmVet should mention Ravi Shankar. The only album/CD I enjoy from the Beatles is George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh”.
You’re such a doober AmVet…really you are. I can enjoy Nora Jones AND Ravi’s sitar moron. Ravi had an influence on the Beatles and it is found in the only album/CD of theirs that I enjoy.
I’m not “in love” with the past. I can move on and appreciate today.
What a wide romanticizing load you are.
By Luckoduh
November 18, 2007 6:12 PM | Link to this
{{{{By AmVet November 18, 2007 5:54 PM getalife, these neo-cons should never listen too carefully to rock & roll. They might realize the people who wrote those songs are the polar political opposites of them and their demented 1950’s world view.}}}}
Um, o.k:
I’m rolling thunder, pouring rain
I’m coming on like a hurricane
My lightning’s flashing across the sky
You’re only young but you’re gonna die
I won’t take no prisoners won’t spare no lives
Nobody’s putting up a fight
I got my bell I’m gonna take you to hell
I’m gonna get ya, satan get ya
Hells bells
Hells bells, you got me ringing
Hells bells, my temperature’s high
Hells bells
Yeah, that sounds alot like some candy as-s Code Pinko kowards.
Geez.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 6:13 PM | Link to this
RW (orig.), that’s interesting about the Gram. Gram puns aside, I always wondered about that. I’d give something valuable to be able to hear what he’d be doing today were he still alive. Also, I’m still claiming him and the Brothers for CA.
@@, PS’s “Negotiations & Love Songs” is a Trident Class compilation. Norah has very fine jazz phrasing, as, for some reason, does Fiona Apple. Go fig. They’re both writing contemporary torch, a mighty fine thing to be able to buy and listen to. I’ve dug Redbone since his ‘76 LP. He’s friends with a number of my favorites, too. I think it was Randy Newman who said that he and Leon the Red (not the equally bless-ed Leon the Rus) were arguing over what kind of sound system gave the best fidelity, and Leon insisted that the best sound comes from a hand-crank Victrola with a cracked wooden horn. (Waits would love that quote, I bet.)
Phil, and what Jim the columnist does is write and what I the reader does is praise or criticize him, usually the former and sometimes the latter, esp. if he’s being coy. Ad guys think the peeps dig coy; I resent and despise it, except in a certain red-headed Nathalie I knew 25 years ago, in which case coyness is more adorable than roadways.
get, that Newsweek paragraph is a lie. It attributes to the Reaganauts an argument they did not make. They took the Lockeian and colonial view that that government governs best which governs least. It’s just that it was too late in the history of the language for Dutch to use that locution so he made up his own. At the time everybody knew what it meant, and I don’t think anybody intelligent enough to find her way to the polls thought it meant, Newsweek notwithstanding, “that government won’t work”. So the whole argument the commentator makes is spurious.
By Glenn
November 18, 2007 6:23 PM | Link to this
Hey Amvet, to my knowledge nobody here’s a Neocon, though there are a few Neo-idiots and a couple of us are Neolithic. This weekend I read the term “NeoLib”. The Sam Hill’s that? Is the classical prefix supposed to sound more wonkish or scientific or precise or something? What do we call our Creole friend, a Neoprog?
By PassingGame
November 19, 2007 8:14 AM | Link to this
Brett Favre!
By PassingGame
November 19, 2007 8:19 AM | Link to this
T.O.!!!
By Phil
November 19, 2007 8:37 AM | Link to this
Perhaps a commentary that provokes meditation (in this case, not the religious sort) instead of mediocrity (i.e., more of the same old “we need a plan”, let’s empower the locals to tax the residents, etc.)would lead to less jest and more gestation. Just a thought to ponder.
By Glenn
November 19, 2007 9:44 AM | Link to this
Good morning, Phil. Please see the second bullet in my (Univ. of Michigan) post of 11.23. It’s the product of whollota gestation.
Your point is well taken and beautifully put.
[Rudy&Out]
By Glenn
November 19, 2007 10:01 AM | Link to this
Nor was I kidding about recalling the Governor. It isn’t hard to do in Georgia. As an all but Medieval conservative I’d like to see a Republican in the Governor’s Mansion. Not a non-entity.
By debra
November 19, 2007 10:08 AM | Link to this
Tax us without giving us a good alternative to driving like say…a comprehensive train system? That makes sense?…
By debra
November 19, 2007 10:08 AM | Link to this
Tax us without giving us a good alternative to driving like say…a comprehensive train system? That makes sense?…
By Phil
November 19, 2007 10:21 AM | Link to this
Glenn,
Sorry to impose - I’ll read previous post but I’ll need a link.
Also, please don’t take my comments personally - my beef, for one, is with our government’s inability to effect meaningful policy. We talk about entitlements and criticize people for what we have so well trained them to believe and expect; we talk down on immigrants for daring to show up to make the bed we sleep in; we shun the greedy while we scrape the silvery substance from the ticket……..
Are these the mere by-product of Murphy’s Law, the Law of Unintended Consequences, something much worse,……?
What are we becoming and what have we become?
By Fernando
November 19, 2007 10:32 AM | Link to this
I am not sure what Jim is talking about. Many words, plans and task forces, but the reality is that nothing is done about transportation, there is no plan or vision for the future. Georgia leadership (at state and city levels) lacks the vision and courage to make changes and take actions… No wonder why our state is in such a poor condition…
By GaLiberal
November 19, 2007 10:45 AM | Link to this
Moron Jim says: “Our state today may be in that same kind of frozen moment,” said Crowell. “We may not have anyone in the driver’s seat.”
There can, of course, be one only person in the driver’s seat — and that is Gov. Sonny Perdue (aka The Laughing Fat Man (LFM)).
What Moron Jim doesn’t tell you is that having The LFM in the ‘drivers seat’ is like nickle beer night for drunk drivers. The LFM will make sure his rural buddies that put him in office TWICE get their road projects while the metro area gets stuck with the bill. The LFM continues to believe that the metro area is just one big cash cow for rural Georgia to milk. So what if them rich liberals in Atlanta can’t drive their Beemers to work. Of course, they can’t grasp the concept that people working is what generates the money they use for their sweetheart road projects.
When you vote Rethuglicon, you vote against your own best interests. And rural Georgia is living proof.
By Steve
November 19, 2007 10:55 AM | Link to this
Wooten claims this is “common sense conservatism”…but I’ve read his column for years and not ONCE have I read common sense. I’ve only read flawed partisan hack one liners.
I read his column for the humor. Never fails to get a laugh out of me.
By Glenn
November 19, 2007 10:57 AM | Link to this
Oh Phil,
You’re a gentleman. I did not take it personally; I took it to heart. I knew that you meant it with reference to the string generally. I hate it when serious issues are raised by Jim, intentionally or unintentionally, and then they are ignored. In my own policy area, education, this happens regularly on this blog, not least because education is a JW specialty.
There is no link, as my posts @ 11:23 and @ 3:15 of November 17 were written for this very string. They are to be found above. The 11:23 contains the second bullet point to which I’d referred you a few minutes ago. I’d be interested in your recommendation as to whether I should breathe into it a little, take it out of the interrogative voice, and send it directly to Jim, as it’s quite in earnest. One caution: I framed the post as though it were a memo from a dean at the University of Michigan, which for obvious reasons is the country’s top school for transportation planning, theory and research. (I used to work for a rival outfit.) The post is signed, at the final bullet, with my customary mention of…
Rudy 08
By Traffic Guru
November 19, 2007 11:21 AM | Link to this
Following the lead of former politicans and commissioners of DOT, Sonny is doing nothing now so he can leave office and come back as a paid consultant and shout from the rooftops that we need rail or something like that loser Shackelford. The fact is this region will never fix it ills until we pay for the system we want. If you came from areas with toll roads and high property taxes, did you really think it would free here? Duh already.
By Glenn
November 19, 2007 11:21 AM | Link to this
Fernando,
I’m afraid it’s not that bad. It’s worse. See the second 11:23 post of 11/17, above in this string.
By Rob
November 19, 2007 12:15 PM | Link to this
I read Jim Wooten’s columns from time to time just to check if he has developed any perceptiveness. So far, he hasn’t. He points to the congestion mitigation task force as significant. Is this like ARC, GRTA, or a myriad of past study groups, etc. that have essentially gotten together and said “Yep, we have some problems that are only going to get worse.” Then not much happens without the DOT’s approval. This time he adds that “the bus” has only one driver and one “school bus procurement” source. The governor and the General Assembly are then assigned to those positions respectively. Just knowing an unimaginative, do-nothing like Sonny Perdue is driving and a General Assembly in the hands of Republicans like Glenn Richardson simply fails to fill me with confidence. Maybe we need another prayer meeting at the Capitol. At this point, only some sort of divine being could change things since Georgia’s voters seem incapable of holding the state government to account as a whole.
By doorknob
November 19, 2007 12:30 PM | Link to this
Yea, lets pave Georgia!! As a conservative, I think that we should take privately owned land, pave it and put it in the Public ownership, that way the public can maintain it. And being the conservative that I am, I am more than happy to fund roads through sales tax - I live near my work so I rarely drive or get on the freeways, funding roads through a sales tax would enable me to assist in the paving of Georgia.
By Glenn
November 19, 2007 1:08 PM | Link to this
doorknob behind the curtain,
Your point’s well taken, as usual, but if you give the locals the power to levy a sales tax, they will do that which gets them the most sales tax, and it ain’t roads. But it does cause sprawl and congestion, both of which necessitate more roads. It’s like the rats and the chinchilla farm: a bloody mess.
By Phil
November 19, 2007 2:33 PM | Link to this
Glenn,
Regarding your second bullet from the 11:23 post (and I say this in all seriousness), when scientists are able to predict hurricanes (numbers, strengths, and paths) then we will have the beginnings of the technology needed to study cause and effect for the scenarios you mention. I suspect, however, that sprawl is currently more closely related to the combination of population growth, job availability within a certain mile radius of a prospective home and the total cost of the home for the lower to middle income family. I think it would ultimately be a simpler task to “steer” future events by taking advantage of the concept of “herd mentality” that has been posited to explain the behavior of investors.
By Phil
November 19, 2007 2:52 PM | Link to this
Doorknob’s approach has potential. It just needs a link to a profit-making venture in order to draw in the investors needed to fund such a massive undertaking. I suggest striping the newly paved lands with a checkerboard pattern of lanes and turning it all into the world’s largest demolition derby. You simply line up the vehicles along the boundary and it’s “Start Your Engines”.
By Steve
November 19, 2007 3:55 PM | Link to this
The South has a reputation for electing far-right Neanderthal politicians who don’t care about much beyond God, gays and guns (embracing the former and the latter, and bashing the guy in the middle). The South’s biggest problems, like poverty, have little to do with God, gays, guns or the Republican (or far-right Democratic) politicians they elect. It’s therefore funny, yet again, that the conservative South is shooting itself in the foot by siding with politicians (that would be Republicans) who deny the existence of global warming. Why? Because according to a new study, America’s South will be among the world’s regions worst hit by the impact of global warming on local agriculture.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800501.html?hpid=moreheadlines&sid=ST2007111800526