Friday, January 10, 2014
Send your laundry bill to the Port Authority
Imagine being stuck in traffic on the GW Bridge for four hours! I wonder how many car seats were ruined. If I ever have to commute this way I'm gonna head out with some Depends first. You know if you're gonna deliberately close four lanes on the GW at least have the human decency to spread out a few Port-o-Sans here and there. I agree with NJ Assembly Deputy Speaker John Wisniewski who said Christie is simply "not believable" and how could his deputy chief of staff have planned and done this all on her own? They say an email is forever and my mother always said don't put down certain things in writing. I guess that Port Authority executive David Wildstein is discovering that. Look I never liked Christie as much as some folks here, was never taken in by his NJ bluster and always thought he was somewhat overrated. He said a curious thing during his press conference yesterday that Ft. Lee NJ Mayor Mark Sokolich was never even on his radar. What is that supposed to mean? it kinda implies something else, that if he was on his radar the whole thing may have been plausible. I don't see how in hell Christie becomes the GOP standard-bearer in 2016. In retrospect maybe the whole lapband thing was a waste of time.
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I'm guessing that if you were stuck at GW and got out and relieved yourself on a front tire, the good state of NJ would have a record of it.
ReplyDeleteProbably. I wonder if they'd waive it in such a case but something tells me no. OK so you just had a roast beef wedge with cole slaw on top and washed it down with a cup of coffee and now you're unknowingly stuck in Christie's Scandal and your stomach is starting to percolate...
DeleteYour Mom was right about putting stuff in writing. If there are any daming electronic bytes
ReplyDeletefloating in the e-sphere, NSA probably has them. (Of course, they are only interested in terrorists, not political bullies)
Nyers and NJites. Will never forgive him for tthis. He hit them in the traffic and that is not forgivable or forgettable. In other news I am using Google voice typing to do this comment. Pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteThose four hours a day those commuters were stuck in traffic you can't get those hours back. It's not like God tabulates for you at the end of your life all the hours of purely nonproductive and wasted time and then gives those hours back to you. Now texting and driving is a really bad thing to do, don't get me wrong but I think the way it started was folks being stuck in traffic.
DeleteWondering about the vocal conversion ware: does it address those English language idiosyncracies (which are sometimes even difficult when writing) such
ReplyDeleteas to, two and too, they're, their, and there; its and it's etc? Knew a secretary once who used spellcheck, but her writing was full of those types of things....
Dunno. That ws my first try with it and i couldn't figure out how to make it go back and correct things.
ReplyDeleteThe emerging conservative response on this, one school of thought anyway is that the Obama scandals are worse so what is BridgeGate? (the WSJ position. A dangerous undercalculation imo.
ReplyDeleteThat techno stuff, seems like when you get a device be it smartphone or tablet you sometimes have to spend more time than necessary on technical issues. Like I was browsing through some tech support forums the other day and doesn't matter the device but a common problem might be not being able to open an app. I recently downloaded and installed an .apk file, had trouble opening or launching it and so googled the problem which was a common one. Most of the advice said to clear the cache and data but some sites said to also go into your App Mgr. and force stop the app. OK so when I did this force-stopped the app I got a prompt or a message saying "force stopping an app may cause the app to misbehave." So what are apps like little children?
ReplyDeleteSummer driving out in the Great Plains always has a lot of road construction: hundreds of traffic cones, two way, cross-overs etc. The humor columnist, Dave Barry, claims to have done a study and found that crews go out in the Spring, put up miles of traffic cones, no work gets done at all and the crew picks them up in the Fall.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Habitat for Humanity. I like the work they do, don't get me wrong but on some projects they never seem to make much progress although you'll see a bustle of activity from time to time. Like my Mom says too many chiefs not enough Indians.
DeleteChristie seems to have a bit of history about firing people he calls liars
ReplyDeleteeven when they are not...just to cover his ample rear end.
So I was accidentally listening to Savage yesterday during drivetime because I didn't know he replaced Hannity for that slot but kept listening anyway because I wanted to know his take on the Christie thing. Sure enough he got around to it and said Benghazi and the other Obama scandals like the IRS are worse. Now let's deconstruct this because this is what parts of the Right seem to be going with. Is Benghazi far worse and more serious than BridgeGate? of course it is on so many levels but that doesn't mean BridgeGate isn't a scandal. BridgeGate: those who were supposed to serve the public didn't, the truth wasn't told and it was unethical and #2 there were some serious health issues I'm sure not only for some of the commuters but you also had the situation of some of the emergency responders who couldn't get through. You see it's alright that Obama has his share of scandals but now that a member of the Right has one of his own it's like denial and cognitive dissonance. Long story short Mean People Suck whatever their political stripe.
ReplyDeleteMost partisan folks are not familiar with the history on attacks on US diplomatic
Deleteposts, nor apparently is Mr. Savage. When 38o marines were killed in the Beirut attack, there was no months of blame for Reagan, when the Twin Towers were attacked, there was no witch hunt for Bush 2. In the case of Christie, his people directed an affair to punish a political opponent: different
apples, different oranges...and this liberal progressive old guy has no ax to grind with Chrisie, given NJ-NY politics and his apparent being in the dark by his staff. I AM surprised that the far right isn't jumping in though; a chance to 'savage' a 'moderate rino', ya know?
I'm surprised too the far right isn't jumping in unless they figure if you apply a little common sense things will take care of themselves and not in Christie's favor. Savage is hard to listen to, everyone who doesn't share his opinion is an idiot and a moron. I thought that whole schtick died with Bob Grant.
DeleteYou know I don't think the average NY/NJ person really has any issue with some politician having a personal beef with another politician and making evil retributions over it. I think where the issue comes is that Christie dragged everyone into it. I mean, if he has a problem with Ft Lee's mayor he can just personally go and piss in the man's cornflakes and everyone would be okay with that. But when you drag everyone else's commute time into it? That's not cool. And oh yeah, I think the GOP is busy dancing behind closed doors, that's why they haven't said much about it. They all hate him anyway and he's given them the opportunity they've been waiting for. He's never gonna make it to the Nationals now.
ReplyDeleteLast couple of days I've been really under the weather, rundown and achy and hardly any sleep the other night. Got caught up on some mainstream conservative commmentary on the Christie Affair and they all think barring a smoking gun which they don't really see he'll just rise above this maybe even to the WH. Yeah but early polling shows with the GWB Scandal this isn't playing well in Peoria. Peggy Noonan chalks the scandal up to political agents and operatives whom she sees as thugs playing hardball but doesn't seem to lay the blame at Christie's feet. It's a strange distancing effect, nobody ultimately knows at this point who ultimately gave the order but logic would dictate it'd be the head honcho and to be honest he has the personality for it.
ReplyDeleteI think he is in the clear regarding that chemical spill that left Charleston W. VA without potable water.
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish people refer to chicken soup as penicillin, works wonders. I may have to go out on a limb here regarding my prediction but I think in the near future once the investigation gathers steam things are gonna come out and Christie will be forced to resign. Again I may be totally wrong here but I would think a top priority of those investigators is to find that missing Christie link. Personally speaking I think Christie might fit into the category of those politicians who think because they have the power the rules don't apply to them. He might be a kind of Spitzer but in a different way without the sexual proclivities.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a surprise. I heard it here first! But he is sort of a bull in a china shop guy and his persona is one of direct and open...unless it is a fake
Deletepersona. Remember John Edwards: wife with cancer, impregnated a woman and covered it up for three years while running for pres? Sort of
like Newt Gingrich, who was womanizing while his wife was hospitalized with cancer. Edwards-long gone, Newt still hard at it, bugging the heck out of me.
A surprise why? Take away the cult of his personality and it becomes more logical.
DeleteMaybe it's me but did you find it a strange choice of words when he said at the press conference he'd cooperate with any appropriate investigation, any appropriate inquiry? Now unless he's specifically pointing to the Nat'l Enquirer or The Globe and not any state or federal gov't probe to me it's a subtle psychological cue he feels threatened by something.
DeleteI suspect 'appropriate' would be any investigation or inquiry which made
Deletehim look good, maybe even thin.
It could be the new rallying cry of politicians caught in scandal that when things aren't going their way the investigation or inquiry is not appropriate. Next time you get audited by the IRS tell 'em it's not appropriate.
DeleteI guess we wait for the 'smoking gun' paradigm, the gottcha moment, the incontrovertible evidence. 8 minutes of missing tape? Perhaps the kid behind the
ReplyDeletecounter at Burger King who heard, "Two double whoppers, three fries..oh, biggy
size that...hey, Spike you shut down that damn bridge like I told ha? A triple jamocha
shake and two apple crispies. Thanks kid."
Hopefully we don't have to look forward to a sex tape. I don't think it's like that BB, it's more like Saty has said. It's kind of like Gwen Ifill said some kind of implicit assumption or understanding on the part of the players involved that this was ok to do, that somehow he'd ok it if he didn't already and why was that? IMO you don't just undertake something as massive as this just for the hell of it. Pesky logic again, were these people such fanatical loyalists they got so pissed off at the Ft. Lee Mayor they couldn't help themselves? I'm coming at this from the angle of it'd be kind of weird if they did this just by themselves. My boss hates a rival at work so w/o his knowledge or approval I'm gonna give that rival a wedgie and put a turd in his shoe, why would I care so much? No, no smoking gun/flop out your penis moment just a kind of muck association or what's that thing Saty's always referring to? the Occam's Razor.
DeleteI see the Governor has hired a high-powered legal team.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the DeBlasio pizza scandal. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteTepid newscycles; if it isn't one thing, it'sanother .
ReplyDeletePeople in general don't like Hollywood movies with an overt political bias so good luck to Harvey Weinstein. I often lean towards items on the gun control agenda as you know but what bothers me about the gun control crowd is that to me at least they offer no alternative theory or method of self-defense. Take away people's guns, ok I get that but when you take something off the table you need to put something in its place.
DeleteRe the GWB Scandal I'll admit mine is the minority view. Yours is the mainstream analysis where the most logical thing is the most far-fetched. Had a manager once who configured the schedule in weird ways to maximize the suffering of those he didn't like. He acted totally ignorant of all this and to know him you wouldn't think him capable but the pattern existed. The mainstream view (i.e. those who like Christie personally): Bridget Anne Kelly and David Wildstein closed parts of the GW, just something that happened. Even if Christie can't technically be tied into a crime by the feds I think circumstantially it'd be a big mistake for the GOP to make him their standard-bearer come '016.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the GOP makes a mistake in its standard bearers. The Dems as well. IMO, the strategy is always get the independents.
DeleteAllow me a Duckism: things went downhill after Christie said he wanted to give pot to kids. Christie vs. Hillary/BridgeGate vs. Benghazi, interesting. I say the diarrhea vote holds sway and she wins.
ReplyDeleteCome what may, Christie will hold the fast food bloc.
ReplyDeleteBenghazi, are people still going on about this? During Bush2, there were 13 attacks on embassies that left 60 people dead. Where was the outrage? Oh that's right, there wasn't any. People will latch on to, conflate, embellish and outright make shit up to make Obama look bad and what's amazing is that they continue to hold onto their delusions even after they've been given every fact refuting them. As far as Christie goes, he's toast. He took things just a little too far, and it has totally blown up in his face. I think even he knows that he's got no future. He'll be lucky if they don't impeach him. It's such a shame, these people, it's like they have everything laid out for them and then somehow they go and eff it all up for themselves. Like OJ Simpson. He had it all, and then he had to get all psychotic and start with the gruesome murdering business.
ReplyDeleteI agree he's toast. Even if he technically wasn't behind the bridge scandal (highly unlikely) his administration was involved in it. Not only his administration but some of his top administration so it's not gonna sit well with the folks in Peoria. You're either guilty (most likely) or you don't know what the hell your staff is up to. Either way not good but conservative commentators don't seem to grasp this yet as even the male ones still got that man crush going.
DeleteThe reason the GOP is immune to the free ride Reagan & Bush had with terrorist
ReplyDeleteattacks (Marine Barracks, Twin Towers, etc) is that R&B screwed up so much other stuff, there was no interest. Gotta pin sumpin on Obama, ya know.
Well I think it's pretty safe to pin the bad website on him. I'll go with that.
DeleteNew this AM:
ReplyDelete"You may have seen this morning, Steve Kornacki released a blockbuster story on the BridgeGate front. It's not narrowly tied to the George Washington Bridge lane closures. But it involves nearby Hoboken, where the city's Mayor, Dawn Zimmer, says the Christie administration refused to provide Sandy Relief until the city approved a separate real estate project tied to Christie confidante, David Samson. Samson of course is Chairman of the Port Authority and currently eye deep in the BridgeGate story." ...oh what a web....
NJ and NY Port Authority corruption is old news, governors of both states going way back have used it for their own advantage including Cuomo's Daddy Mario. One of the most common complaints we hear is Port Authority funds are not narrowly used for things like maintaining infrastructure for bridges and tunnels but for all kinds of things not even related to the original mission and reason for existence of the Port Authority. What's new here is Christie possibly using it beyond the more mundane ways of the past. Nobody really cared about the other stuff but Christie being Christie had to bring it up a notch and when the dust settles the other thing will be what do we do about the Port Authority?
DeleteBut BENGHAZI!!! is SO MUCH WORSE!!!
ReplyDeleteI probably see the Benghazi scandal as being more important than the two of you but having said that when the GOP presidential campaign really gets underway in 2016 if I were a consultant I'd be saying everyday beyond this orbit of insular conservative commentary most of the rest of the voting country doesn't care as much as we do about the issue so we gotta put something else on the table. Christie might not even be around by then.
DeleteFrom a political pragmatic standpoint, note that Christie is tied with Hillary in the polls. Considering she leads Ryan by 8, Paul by 13, Huckabee by
Delete15, Perry by 17, Cruz by 18, Rubio by 19, Santorum by 19 and Jeb Bush
by 21, so the GOP has to cuddle up to the guy. He still has less baggage
that turns off the independents, although it beats me why Jeb Bush scores so low.
You still like the guy, it's obvious. It's fairly certain the Dems will run a few BridgeGate ads. That early tie can easily be eroded.
DeleteYeah, I sort of like Christie; he seems up front, not hung up on socon values and I wish I could eat like him.
DeleteI've never had that man crush for him. His fellow Governor Andrew Cuomo doesn't like so-cons at all and wishes they would move out of his state but where are we to go? where are we to live? what can we do?
DeleteChristie is finished. You forget the GOP hates him for hugging Obama. The dems wont bury Christie, his own people will.
ReplyDeleteThat may be true but Christie really finished himself. Logically are we to believe some of his top aides and certain execs at the Port Authority acted totally on their own 'cause they just love the guy so much? Yeah it's possible although that'd be kinda weird like some sitcom but in these investigations you gotta operate under the premise at least initially that they were acting on orders or wishes from above. No the GOP doesn't have to bury him just hand him the shovel 'cause he's doing such a good job on his own.
DeleteWell, good luck with old Mike .
DeleteI agree with Ole Huck about contraception coverage but not for the reasons stated. You might also say why aren't condoms covered but I digress. I break it down as you know like this: sex might be emotionally necessary (depends on you I guess) but it's not medically necessary hence bc coverage shouldn't be mandated. I don't like being dragged into people's bedrooms.
DeleteBC meds, because of their pharmacology , find other medical use besides contraception. Viagra (which every
Deleteidiot thinks SHOULD be covered), has other uses as well. So what's with the 98% of Catholic
women that use or have used birth control?
Yesterday I just read a whole section in a book devoted just to the numerous methods of contraception (mostly for women) on the market. Suffice to say it's a complicated subject, some methods are more complicated than others and then there's the woman's medical history to consider besides the risks and benefits of each method. Also practically every method you can become pregnant at least a very small % of the time. I think it should be left to the individual insurer whether it's covered or not. Don't like your insurer not covering it shop elsewhere. I'm kind of quaint and old-fashioned in this regard, I always think of health insurance first and foremost being for some elderly person who trips in the bathroom and damages their hip and not so some woman can fool around (that's my inner Huck coming out).
DeleteYou may well be a potential recruit for that holy archery club.
DeleteI don't think so BB. They represent one extreme in this debate and Planned Parenthood represents the other extreme. Think of the name "Planned Parenthood" which strongly implies every single child needs to be planned but that's not Life which often throws unexpected surprises our way. Probably lots of us weren't even planned but we're still loved by our parents. My Mom is fond of saying it's not a perfect world but PP wants it to be a perfect world but in what universe?
DeleteI have to say you and Saty have become kind of experts or authorities on the Religious Right but in reading your link I couldn't find any threat that the Quivers pose to me personally. Never heard the word before (maybe I need to get out more). A benign cult?
DeleteIt would seem logical that planned pregnancy babies are much wanted,
Deletewhile the oops babies , natural accidents are greatly desired by the church? Another archaic religious construct, or simply
a way of being like the rest of the animal kingdom?
Being greatly desired by the church? How 'bout Life is messy and many of us were unexpected but our parents adjusted and still love us. Every single pregnancy being planned while desireable that's just not realistic. Your little link there the fact remains that even with the most modern and technically efficient contraceptive methods there is at least a small margin for getting pregnant so I don't think it always comes down to simply forgetting to take your pill. Do the math.
DeleteEncourage folks to make all the babies they can: ban birth control pills and take
ReplyDeleteaway government support. Rand Paul makes it all so simple . Holy crap, Christie makes Paul look like Himmler.
You and Saty always seem to equate an insurance company not covering bc as somehow being the same as bc being illegal, that if the gov't doesn't mandate coverage somehow women won't get ahold of them like they're locked up in a bank vault in a temple somewhere high up on a hill. My thing with Planned Parenthood, the name they chose for themselves is it's like do not deviate, if a pregnancy is unplanned ipso facto you terminate at least that seems to be the philosophy. You know when everyone's market-testing their brand you'd think it would be time for a new name or something.
DeleteAbout your link not to defend Rand Paul and his unfortunate thoughts, it's a sad overgeneralization about single moms at a minimum but I was recently browsing through this book called Hot Sex by this Australian sex researcher by the name of Tracey Cox (that's as bad as "Fluke"). OK when I'm in Barnes & Noble I'll peruse nearly anything but anyway towards the end she asked a group of men and women to keep a kind of sex diary for a few weeks, what they did, their feelings and all that and I got depressed just reading it. Nearly all of them were engaging in infidelity, many were promiscuous and the word "guilt" came up alot. This is hot sex? but I got to thinking if they represent any kind of the average man or woman then we're really screwed up.
DeleteHad to check Ms. Cox out. Her publisher is Lovehoney.co.uk; likely the
DeleteMcGraw Hill of sex. I like research, but that seems a bit repetitious and dreary. Lot of adultery around: knew a CEO that impregnated two personal secretaries in a row. Each retired very early on a wowser stipend to Hawaii. You hear of the occasional pastor/choir director
affair, office shenanigans and of course the NBA dudes who keep prolific and large records. But, yeah, overall most of us are either content monogamists or cautious folk. They say that power people just do it for the thrill of the risk..Vitter, Petreaus, Edwards, even Thomas Jefferson.
You know the long list . Fortunately, if you feel overly harassed by all the women chasing you, there is the Yonkers addiction clinic .
Maybe it's my wintertime depression but I found her research, her book quite dreary too which is ironic considering the title. There's an old thing called exhibition bias though and it plagues all sex researchers. Basically the more uninhibited, the more extroverted among us, the more exhibitionistic tend more to answer and fill out such intimate surveys, polls and stuff and not us content monogamists or cautious folk. Kinda skews the results.
DeleteIn some recent and haphazard online research came across the interesting subject of HPPD or Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, kind of like a perpetual trip even after stopping use a long time ago. Then there's that kid who recently died from that rare aging disorder that starts with a P. You can spend all day at the computer.
ReplyDeleteTimothy Leary, who ought to know, said that the personal computer was the
Deletedrug of the 1990s.
Today it's the smartphone. Wiki says acid is not fat-soluble so how to explain HPPD? Must be hell when you're trying to do your tax return.
DeleteI think new trouble is brewing for Chris Christie if you've heard the latest. At fairly typical NJ news events he's been looking worried lately, a little distracted.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it may be he is just another big fat crook.
DeleteHis latest strategy is making Wildstein look like a crazy person. I keep going back to my original point, why would ALL these people do this for him (e.g. screwing up the bridge) w/o his knowledge or consent? Is there something weird going on?
DeleteTis hard for a 300 lb behemoth to find a low profile.
DeleteIt's like if Godzilla had a scandal. I've been downloading a couple issues of National Review on my tablet for late-night reading and I think there's finally a new conservative consensus forming that that's it for Christie or that he really isn't the favored GOP standard-bearer now because of the GWB. Even if there is no smoking gun or email in the end the thing is just gonna cling to him like the smog.
Delete