THE NUMBERS NEVER LIE

And now for something completely different....

 



 

SPEED TRAP

Remember in the old days, when a police cruiser would find a nice spot just around a bend on a road where everybody speeds, set up his radar gun, and then try to nail you?

That was back in the day when drivers coming the other day would flash their lights to warn you of the speed trap, and it gave both sides a sporting chance.

Then radar detectors invented, and although in many states it was legal to buy them, it was illegal to use them, but they still gave the drivers a bit of an edge, so the police came up with new kinds of radar that the detectors could not detect.

Nowadays we have photo enforcement systems that utilize digital cameras, computers and radar sensors to detect violations of speed limit and red light laws.

I would think that if the goal of this new technology was to have traffic abide by the speed limit, but for some reason, at least in Arizona, they put out signs warning you of the speed trap.

I'm not kidding-they do the same thing for red light cameras!

Is this somehow a throwback to the old west tradition of calling your opponent out? In Philly, they would just hit you over the head with a bat. And that was Mayor Frank Rizzo's method-other people were a little less civilized!

If you see the sign, and still get a ticket, what does that say about you?

I've got to wonder-is this a fight against traffice violations, or a fight against illteracy?

WRECKING BALL

Rocker Bruce Springsteen may be Chris Christie's musical idol, but the Republican New Jersey governor and the Jersey rock icon have different political views.

 

Next week in Parma, Ohio, Springsteen will be performing on behalf of our favorite Kenyan, Barack Obama.

 

Ohio, of course, is a key battleground state; no Republican has ever won the presidency without taking Ohio.

 

Obama campaign officials are delighted.

 

The Obama/Biden team has been emphasizing its fight for the working middle class, and that’s certainly been Springsteen’s philosophical and political soul ground over the decades.

 

"Bruce Springsteen's values echo what the President and Vice President stand for: hard work, fairness, integrity," campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.

What I find amusing is that Americans are so gullible.

Bruce Springsteen represents the working man, right?

Bruce Springsteen has never held a job in his life.

That's a fact. Go read any of the books Dave Marsh wrote about him.

Bruce was proud of that fact in the seventies-he swore he'd NEVER hold a job that was unrelated to music..

But when it helped to sell records he sure started acting like he'd worked in factories and the like. That became his image, and it was a farce.

It's kind of like Obama himself. He surrounds himself with celebrities, and acts like he's just plain folk, and America eats it up.

Earlier this year, it seemed unlikely that Springsteen would work on behalf of Obama again this year as he did in 2008, and at the time he seemed somewhat disappointed in Obama.

“I would like to have seen more activism in job creation sooner than it came,” he said, according to an ABC News report in February. “I would like to have seen people helped out, seen some of these [home] foreclosures stopped somehow.”

Springsteen said Obama was “more friendly to corporations than I thought he would be."

Trust me, I am not waving the Romney flag here.

I just wish Americans would actually look at what these liars DO and stop voting based on bumper-sticker slogans and rock star appearances at rallies.

WHERE'S WYATT WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

It's hard for me to believe sometimes that the people living in Arizona are the offspring of those who settled here before air conditioning (talk about tough), braved the untamed western years (the Kurt Russell movie romanticizes it, Tombstone really was one tough town), and once had the cajones to tell the rest of the country to shove its political correctness and that naming the third Monday in January a state holiday was not representative of the desires of the majority of its population (30% are Hispanic, only 3% are black).

Of course the state later caved on that so the NFL would place the Super Bowl in Arizona.

I think many of the settlers who braved the elements to settle the state rolled over in their graves on that one.

And they are doing six-foot-under-flips again.

The Sound Strike is a collection of bands and musicians who chose to boycott the state in response to the passing of Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law SB 1070.

Faithful followers will remember my prior posts on this topic encouraging people to boycott these artists who fell victim to the sound bytes, calling Arizonans jingoistic without understanding either the situation in the state or the nature of the actual bill.

Now, organizers of the Sound Strike have shifted their focus and are no longer boycotting the state.

I say, Arizonans should still boycott the bands involved, but so desperate for attention is Arizona that the local media will kiss the ass of anything that gives them the opportunity to show that Arizona resembles a city rather than a loose collection of surburbs with no real identity to speak of.

It's been three years since Chicago punk band Rise Against last played a show in Arizona.

And the youth of Phoenix went to see this band last Friday, the same band that labeled them rascist not so long ago.
Perhaps a bit ironically, the Sound Strike movement chose to lift their ban on bands playing Arizona just as SB 1070's most controversial portion of the law, the part that states that law-enforcement officials should try to determine the immigration status of a person when reasonable suspicion exists, was passed into law.

Even with that being the case, Rise Against, whose music and members have always been politically outspoken, didn't mention the subject Friday except to explain why they chose to become a part of the Sound Strike in the first place.

The Airheadzona crowd was happy to dance and crowd surf while Rise Against played what they allegedly pass off as music.

According to what passes for a newspaper in Phoenix,  Rise Against put on a solid performance, much to the delight of their fans, who, after all, had been waiting some time for that performance.

Sadly, Phoenix lost a chance to send a message to the Sound Strike movement and to Rise Against, telling them that we'd rather separate politics and entertainment in the future.

But that would mean people in Phoenix actually would need to understand politics.

Which involves accepting the responsibilities of citizenship.

Which involves work. And reading. And thought.

Three things that Phoenix is not very good at anymore.

But there really used to be some tough motorscooters living here. One hundred and twenty degrees with no air conditioning, and these people were ranchers?

That's bad ass!

Where's Wyatt Earp when you need him?

HAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY EARNED YOUR VOTE?

Paul Ryan said that a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for Ombama.

But is that just a scare tactic? Aren't you supposed to vote for the person you want to see get the job?

Maybe instead of spewing bile and rhetoric, Ryan should be trying to earn my vote.

Instead, the Republican part spurned Ron Paul at the convention, presumable to make Romney look more popular a candidate than the results showed.

Ron Paul's supporters were relegated to the back of the bus during the Republican National Convention after the GOP leadership assigned states whose delegations are flush with the Texas congressman's representatives to the outskirts of the convention center in Tampa, Fla.

States with a significant number of Ron Paul delegates were seated as far from the main stage as possible when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accepts the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night

Paul's campaign succeeded in several states: Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon, Nevada, Iowa and Minnesota, claiming 177 delegates for Paul even though the Texas congressman did not win a single primary.

Paul cheekily sidestepped calls to hand his delegates over to Romney, insisting he has no sway over his followers, and made no efforts to charm the Romney campaign, telling the New York Times, "I don't fully endorse him for president."

At the convention, the Paul delegates were prevented from casting votes for Paul by the Republican National Committee, who bent and broke rules to keep Paul off the ballot.

While the convention featured a tribute video to the retiring Texas congressman, he was not permitted to speak at the convention. More than 100 of his core backers then showed their devotion to him by marching out of the convention hall after the tribute was over.

A few minutes after the tribute, Paul's son, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, took the stage.

Paul's own outdoor rally on Aug. 26 and , his son's speech at the convention the following Wednesday both spotlighted the division within the party.

However, the party platform adopted at the convention spoke to his influence, including a push for an audit of the Federal Reserve and a call for a commission to consider "a metallic basis for U.S. currency," or a return to the gold standard. Both of these are issues Paul has been speaking about for years, and they have finally been given some attention.

But has the party earned your vote?

Or asked differently, is a vote for Ron Paul a vote for Obama?

Only you can asnwer that question for yourself. I feel like a vote for Romney is me selling out, once again, on a "lesser-of-two-evils" vote.

I promised myself a long time ago not to cast my vote for someone I did want to see sitting in the chair.

Maybe if enough Americans voted for a person instead of a party, we'd see real change in our political system.