Thursday, June 25, 2009

Limbaugh Blames Obama and Democrats for Sanford's Bizarre Affair and Neglegence

This is Rush also acting quite bizarre. I got this from DKos, and Media Matters I wonder if he's got a South American somebody too. What does he do with all those cigars...



My transcript:

Obama wants you, he...The best way to put it, and it's working: He’s trying to kill spirit. All this hope and change; he’s trying to kill it. Do you know how many frustrated Americans there are out there at what's happening? This Sanford business, I'm going to tell you one of the first thoughts that crosse my mind, with Mark Sanford. This was the first thought. What he did defies logic. This is more than being 180 degrees out of phase because of lust or love. To split the scene for five days. And we know he’s been separated, and he knows, by the way, that the newspaper in his state has the e-mails between his concubine down there in Argentina . He knows this. He knows that somebody knows what’s going on. He knows his wife knows. So he ups and leaves for five days, doesn’t leave anybody in charge of the state in case there is an emergency. This is, this is almost like, “I don’t give a damn. Country’s going to hell in a hand basked and I just want out of here.”

He had just tried to fight the stimulus money coming to SC. He didn’t want nay part of it. He had just lost the battle. He said, “what that hell, I mean I’m, the Federal Government is taking over. What the hell, I want to enjoy life.”

One of the first things I thought, now today he’s saying he doesn’t want to give up, he wants to stay in office, but I mean even Charles Krauthammer said, this is like self-inflicted political suicide, and it certainly appeared to be. The point is, there are a lot of people who’s spirit, is just, they’re fed up and the hell with it. I don't even want to fight it anymore. I just want to get away from it.

Then a check into e-mail.

Rush, are you kidding, this theory of yours about Sanford?

No, I’m not g… My first thought was, he said the hell with this. The Democrats are destroying the country, we can’t do anything to stop it, I gave everything I had to stop it here in South Carolina, my wife’s left me, the hell with it, I’m going to enjoy life, what little time I’ve got left. Folks, there are a lot of people looking at life and they’re saying “screw it.” They're saying, "screw it." And before Obama takes away their money, before Obama takes away their house, before the economy takes away their house; there are people who are simply saying the hell with this, they are tuned out. “The hell with it, I’m just going to try to enjoy this as much as I can.” And they’re thinking about, what, of course, have you…, Clinton was in Argentina the other night from what I’m told. I frankly think that this is what’s wrong with the economy today. I frankly think a whole lot of people just lost their spirit.

Wow, Rush, talk about a leap of logic. I suppose the Democrats are responsible for your weight gain too. They are stressing you out and making you eat a ton of jelly doughnuts.

Strange Baseball Metaphors

I was watching the highlights of the latest improbable Mariner victory on mlb.com--all Mariner victories are improbable--when Ronny Cedeno, filling in for an injured Yuniesky Betancourt at shortstop made and amazing spinning play to throw out the runner and end the game. The announcer said, "dollar seventy-five gets you that spin-cycle to end the game."

I must say, I've never heard that one before. Granted, I'm sure Cedeno got paid a lot more than fourteen bits for that play.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Baseball is Boring Until it's Not

For two and a half hours today, I was privy to the most boring baseball in modern history. Ok, that's an exaggeration; the game featured a few paltry hits by the opposition and an error by the pitcher, Jarrod Washburn, that allowed an extra run to score. The most exciting play came when Seattle Mariners left-fielder Endy Chavez was flipped head over heels by Yuniesky Betancourt. A lazy man's lazy man, Betancourt had a terrible day, striking out several times with runners in scoring position and failing to communicate so that he may have cost his teammate the season. It doesn't look good for Endy Chavez. He came off the field on a stretcher, writhing in pain. Tentative diagnosis: ligament damage to the knee. We will have to wait for his MRI so the magic of nuclear spin can be exploited to view his maligned joint.

As with a typical boring game, I took the opportunity to get up from my seat and make a few phone calls. No dice. Everybody was out doing something too important to rescue poor Alex from the banal spectacle before him.

One of the advantages of Safeco field is the people. It's like the crowds of Paris backed into a multilevel green and gray superstructure, but instead of dog-doo and crepes, you have peanut shells strewn everywhere and the wafting odor of garlic fries. I swear, people holding a hot-dog and those fries are like Pied Pipers and I'm the rat. I made a circuit around the 100 level. The cool thing about the 100 level is that it is open toward the field so I could see the game as I walked all the way around the stadium. I made a circuit over an inning. For the opposition, a fly out and two strikeouts. Washburn settled down and started throwing the ball in the strike-zone and not in-between the shoulder blades of the runners. Next up, the Mariners: fly out, single, single, got something going there. Then newbie Chris Woodward squelched the rally with a double play ball. It was time to retake my seat in the nosebleeds.

The game went like that until the bottom of the 8th inning. Arizona brought in a lefty to face left-handed slugger Russel Branyan. Branyan nullified the same-handed strategy by depositing a 2-2 curveball into the right-field seats faster than a government bailout deposits $80 billion in an ailing financial insurance company. Finally, the crowd woke up, but almost nobody even stood up for the 375 foot blast. It was going to take a lot more to rouse that crowd. The lefty left in disgrace, and in came the righty to protect the 3-1 lead. Not four pitches later, Adrian Beltre was on first with a seeing-eye single. A strikeout, wild-pitch, and fly out allowed Beltre to advance to third base, but he wasn't the tying run, so people were still sitting on their hands.

Then, the manager called upon Ken Griffey Jr, old Mariner hero and merely a shadow of his former self, to pinch hit. The sight of the aging "kid" roused the crowd. This year he was getting a hit once every four at-bats, so I was not convinced that anything will come of it. Nevertheless, the daunting image of a man who has hit more than 600 home runs in his career necessitated a trip to the mound by manager A.J. Hinch to discuss strategy with pitcher Tony Pena. With nobody on first or second base, they could walk Griffey and go after the rookie who ended the last rally in the 6th. Instead, they went after Griffey and Pena laid him a fat (hold the spice) meatball that he crushed into left-center field. It was a homer that everybody recognized right off the bat. The crowd jumped to its feet, fists pumped into the air, and a roar erupted from all present. After 8 innings of boredom and typical Mariner failure, the old hero, the comeback kid, hit it out, proverbially raising the retractable roof. From that point on, there was no doubt the Mariners would emerge victorious. Baseball is like that. They've blown games before after miraculous comebacks. But who cares, victory was in the air. Another two hits gave them the lead, and David (arrrrr like a pirate!) Aardsma slammed the door in the Diamondbacks faces.

That's the old game for you. Make sure you have something else to entertain you: a lively crowd, a bundle of cotton-candy, a board game, an iPhone, a copy of the New York times if the AT&T 3G network goes out of service. Wait patiently, and the agents of fate will make the spectacle on the field worth watching.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Driving in France

We enter the Périphérique at la Porte des Lilas. There are no freeways (autoroutes) through Paris proper, but the Périphérique rings the city and it's many portes. It is jam-packed but moving as we meander south, avoiding cars entering and exiting the road. We are looking for L'autoroute de soleil. The sun highway. The very same freeway under which I passed countless times on my bike heading toward Bois de Vincennes. The road forks 5 km (3 miles) south of the Périphérique, so in fact, I passed it twice. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it," Yogi Berra famously. I exit the Périph, relieved to have taken the correct off ramp and we proceed south toward the junction. I take the fork. L'autoroute de soleil. the yellow-brick road. We're not in Kansas anymore.

I keep right, the vehicle available to us having perhaps 50 horses. I wouldn't know, there's no users manual to be found. At the gas station, a quick phone call to the generous owner informs us that it takes regular unleaded, and not diesel. We only get about 7 liters / 100 km (35 mpg). Surprisingly bad for such a small car. It may be due to my inefficient choice of gears. A five-speed manual, after becoming acclimated to the sound of the engine, it seems that I can shift into 5th at 50 kph (30 mph). I guess freeway driving is not it's cup of tea. It has no tachometer too boot, and the speedometer is displayed dimly and digitally in the center of the dash. I glance to the right to check our speed; 130 kph (80 mph). We've finally reached the speed-limit.

If I keep going with the Wizard of Oz analogy, I have to revise the image of a joyful gaggle of newfound friends, arm in arm, skipping toward the Emerald City in the distance. The road in fact would curve to the right of the city, and the emerald skyscrapers would be replaced with low stone buildings a few modern office towers, and a few spires of churches and cathedrals. Unlike America, France decided not to build their roads straight through the cities, but rather between them. As we proceed toward Orleans, we curve about 10 km (6 mi) around the city. If we wanted to drive in, we would have to get off and take the local roads.

The stark contrast in infrastructure development could not have been clearer. France, followed a different path than America; roads mostly go around and between major cities instead of through them. Despite several fights from residents of small and big towns alike, the interests of quick and easy car access to the centers of the major cities won out, and our cities were bisected, quartered, and butchered by impassible concrete strips that fractured them into disparate neighborhoods. The Santa Monica Freeway (I-10 between L.A. and the ocean) was an disaster for the neighborhoods it bisected, though development afterward has masked some of it's effects.

Yes, after the completion of the super-highways, we could get from the suburbs to our workplaces quickly, in the comfort of our five-person vehicle. Changes in urban structure, lower density, increased our tactical advantage in the face of nuclear war. But the system suffers from it's own success. Cities became dependent on these asphalt tracts for their everyday needs. Locals take a freeway to go a mile. The additional general vehicular traffic necessitating stop signs and traffic lights everywhere; the city streets slow us to the pace of molasses. There's a reason the freeways get clogged to 10 mph during rush-hour. The old alternatives are no better. Our freeways now serve both city traffic and through traffic. If either one is too great, both modes suffer. Furthermore, cities have become victim to, and dependent on, the extra vehicular traffic. The increase in traffic requires installation and maintenance of traffic control devices, and additional maintenance of streets buckling from the traffic. Cities are now also dependent on the freeways for operations, but these roads are maintained by state funds, and expanded by state or federal funds. How a city chooses to develop is no longer up to the city, and for our decisions, we all foot the bill. San Diego is a prime example of a city dependent on it's freeway system. Full of steep canyons, the mesas have become like islands, and the freeways like bridges. For many the difference between the freeway and the city streets is an extra 5 miles--think about going from University City to Sorrento Valley without taking one of the two 8-lane interstates. Even bikes are encouraged to use the freeway for this route; rider beware of the cars zooming by at 75 miles an hour. An entire city whose development was dictated by the freeway system. And people complain about pork when municipalities ask for federal funds for mass transit.

The time for musing and daydreaming comes to the end. We turn off the freeway, I commission the assistance of my passengers to help me find change to pay the toll, and we are on the country highway, headed toward the Loire river. Ahead are the châteaux and the small towns that sprung up around them. One thing can be said about the highways: They are gargantuan concrete structures through which our wealth flows and now our country's lifeblood for better or for worse. As I visit the old castles, I am reminded that 300 years ago it was through these gaudy stone structures that flowed the wealth of a nation.