PCIntern
PCIntern's JournalWe are caught with our proverbial pants down in this ice storm in Montgomery County, PA...
Now please allow me to preface this by saying that the vast majority of those involved have places to go, have relatives, friends, churches and synagogues opened their doors and invited those without power to spend the night or charge their phones, computers, or whatever. We are definitely NOT going to have an apocalypse of any type here anytime soon and the power should be back for virtually everyone within three days.
However, it is worth noting that there have been some real catastrophes: an ER doc was helping a neighbor remove a tree limb from his driveway and another branch fell and the doc was taken to the hospital in very critical condition. There are downed sparking power lines all over the place and believe it or not, the valley in which I live has very very poor cellular service BECAUSE building a cellular tower nearby has been voted down time and again. So the people with their power lines cavorting in their driveways can't leave their homes since 13000 volts is easily conducted through the standing water around the houses and they can't report the disaster because there's no phone service. Conundrum,eh? anyone else want to "preserve the environment" BY NOT BUILDING A FRIGGING CELL TOWER???!!!!! We have been warning about EXACTLY this issue for YEARS here: the roads are tree-lined and any storm, but especially a storm such as this one, knocks branches down and we lose power routinely. If the phone lines go down we can't call anyone and tell them that we have no power. When we tell vendors that we have no cell service, they talk to us like we're stupid or something. "How can that be?"
Anyway, there are almost 600000 homes without power and even when it comes back on for many, it goes off again due to more falling branches or shorting transformers.
Well, life sure ain't dull....
I knew there was something Christie said which was bothering me and I couldn't quite figure it out:
Remember when he made that snarky statement a while ago and he sarcastically said something to the effect that he moved the cones himself? He was trying to be funny...
Ha. Ha. Ha.
But think about it: you could make the case that he had discussed this beforehand and perhaps he asked, "How do you shut down lanes?" And someone responded, "It's easy. You just move cones into the highway and force a merge of three lanes down into one. You can just do it with the cones and some flashing yellow lights." He was well aware of how it was done. Perhaps he knew a priori.
Yes I know this is fictionalized...but if the RW can make shit up about the President, I can make shit up about this guy. And this, as opposed to the President being Kenyan, is plausible.
Great news from Philly!
The NY Jets and the Tampa Bay Bucs are interested in Michael Vick. Good. Now get the f--k out of town.
I'm being polite. Normally I'm not so reasonable when it comes to this sociopath.
I guess it was unintentional...maybe not....
The Philly Inquirer front page has a story about Christie running down the right-hand column. In the center of the page, the words: SUPER SIZED are placed in an article about the Super Bowl. But the juxtaposition is unmistakable....
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=PA_PI&ref_pge=lst
"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad."
Bosworth and Longfellow were right on the mark there. The insanity of what the Christie Administration attempted to perform in the State of New Jersey is unusual even by Rethug standards. Shaking down whole batches of mayors and other elected officials is eventually going to get you in some measure of distress, often of the Federal level, since career prosecutors spend their waking hours dreaming of scenarios which will catapult them to the top of their profession. Faced with run-of-the-mill cases year after year, once in a while there is the Big One.
Now you would think that someone who had worked in the Office would know this, and they do. But, and it is a big but, there is a psychological/psychiatric component which comes to the fore in these cases and someone with, say, an impulse-control disorder, might have a problem with judgment and "just do it".
While it is true that former Senator, the "good" Dr. Frist was rightfully pilloried for making a diagnosis of a comatose woman by television, those of us who do not sit in the armchairs of power are more than entitled to a clinical impression of an individual. To argue the opposite is to state that all people are fully rational and sane until proven otherwise by competent medical personnel following a textbook evaluation, review of systems, and history. I'm not so certain that those who would opine that point of view would ascribe that tenet-of-practice to the naked adult who was running around a junior high school. Instant dismissal of such an individual as some form of "nuts" followed by mandatory incarceration of some sort would be demanded well before some doctor showed up on the scene with a battery of tests.
And so it is with this crowd: you can see what you know was occurring: the sudden brash insults ("What are you, stupid?"
, what people stated occurred (shakedowns, threats, cutting off of funds), and the lame excuses and confused verbiage which is emanating from the mouths of the accused. It is classic low level "you sure have a nice store window there, shame if anything happened to it" elevated to dangerous heights: "You sure have a nice town there, shame if traffic prevented ambulances from getting through." It is a complex combination of narcissism, rage, self-loathing, sociopathy, and other points on the axes. It is bad enough for individuals who have to deal with these people on a daily basis, it is impossible for a population to do so.
A favorite phrase from my father of blessed memory comes to mind: Tinhorn Mussolini
So since the NFL seized the term "Super Bowl" - (gee, can I use it here?) all the ads for food, etc.
say "Blah blah blah for the BIG GAME on Sunday!" since they are not permitted to use the term "Super Bowl".
Augggh! I did it again...probably 7 years in Lockup....(on MSNBC!)
Wotta country: I think I'm gonna get a license for Memorial and Labor Days and none of the stores will be able to use the term to sell mattresses or whatever they sell on those days...or was that Presidents' Day? Gotta grab that one too...and may be also Independence Day, but I think the movie producers and Will Smith own that one. Shit...they're way ahead of me by now.
Meanwhile, one of the radio stations here in Philly have promoted a big Soup Bowl Party, where the restaurants are bringing bowls of soup or something.
Funny, in a way...
I was thinking as I was driving in this morning:
Suppose this whole Christie story was not real-life, but Hollywood film.
1. Who would star and be in the supporting cast?
2. Who would direct?
3. What path would the ensuing plotline follow given everything we know up to now but assuming that the usual group of scriptwriters got hold of it.
Many films such as Three Days of the Condor, Seven Days in May, many Gene Hackman films, many Denzel Washington films, many Clint Eastwood films, and a host of others start small and get big fast. You know: the guy who is at the wrong place at the wrong time a la Hitchcock's protagonists, but find that there is an enormous plot going on which transcends the obvious. And it IS New Jersey!
Thread'll probably sink like a stone...
ATLANTA! ATLANTA! ATLANTA! What did the Republican leadership know and when did they know it?
They were warned that there would be an attack of snow and ice and chose to disregard it leading to millions of people's lives being disrupted, illnesses, and deaths. Responsibility must be placed upon the heads of those in charge. I would suggest an investigative committee charged with justifying a guilty verdict to be formed immediately.
I have spent all day trying to figure out what that statement
"I'll break you in half. Like a boy." truly means. Please allow me to say that if this guy lived in meighborhood, former FBI agent or not, my children would be allowed nowhere near him or his home given that he even made that statement. But is he implying "just" violence or violence/perversity? Use your imagination...right?
Years ago, I chaired a committee and we had this nutjob lady who was quite possibly the most argumentative person with whom I have ever had to deal personally. She was getting out of hand - quite unruly - and I politely (no, REALLY!) asked her if she could restrain herself. Her response unhesitatingly was, "Suck my dick!"
I stood there in stunned silence for what must have seemed like an eternity in front of a now-hushed room. And then I asked her, "What does that even MEAN?" Everyone else burst out laughing and she of course, started really haranguing me. But the peals of laughter just drowned her out.
I felt the same way as I had that night when I heard the Congressman's epithet directed at that reporter. Weird, eh?
YUCK! all the way around...
"That's Entertainment"
When Limbaugh calls a law student a 'slut' or Beck calls the President a 'racist' or that turd-from South Carolina Kincannon calls Nancy Pelosi a four-letter word beginning with "c", the RW machine responds by "distancing" itself from the offending statements by saying that these are "Entertainers" and not representative of the political establishment.
No folks, they are not Entertainers.
These are entertainers:Judy Garland, Bob Hope, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkle, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Ross, Andy Williams, Lawrence Welk, Jean-Pierre Rampal...these are Entertainers. They bring artistry, talent, rehearsal, special gift, and a host of attributes to the stage, the screen, or the concert hall. The fact that a hateful, rambunctiously obnoxious individual can spew forth on the radio, TeeVee, or Internet does not qualify them as Entertainers. It qualifies them as Anarchists.
For that is what they are: they profess to long to blow up the existing structure of the Union and create some Nation-State of crypto-fascism. Two points need to be elucidated: first, they really do not want this to occur because it would render them jobless and second, the resultant State, should it actually come to fruition would be politically cannibalistic in the extreme. To the second point, observe how what we on the Left would call minute differences among these RWers cause them to become apoplectic with respect to each other. Pseudo-revolutionaries like Savage fight with each other mercilessly, turning the guns upon each other in that wonderful Right Wing circular firing squad which we have come to enjoy.
So far, we have managed to avert all-out crisis. Woe betide us if this crowd ever really got its act together.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Philly
Home country: USA!USA!USA!
Current location: Jersey Shore
Member since: Sun Feb 22, 2004, 09:01 AM
Number of posts: 25,619
