Severely Misguided Conservative Glee Over Olympics Decision

(As stated elsewhere)

I don't get conservatives misguided glee over the Olympics decision. They don't care about Chicago, they don't care about America, and by their logic, this was Obama's loss. I see it differently.

Given associated costs w/ hosting an Olympics event, Chicago's loss means no angry teabagger rants over the cost and no worries about batshit crazy right-wing Glenn Beck militia wingers blowing the place up, meaning the rest of America remains safe from domestic terrorists.

I believe this was highly planned & as a direct result, Obama won because he saved us money (pacifying the right) and he kept us safe from angry wingers, which though certainly a relief to left-wingers, should come as a relief all America that isn't bat-shit cuckoo bananas.

This is a solid win for Obama and furthermore, it demonstrates that ability of the President to unite both the left, the right (whatever's left of them, anyways) and the rest of America.

/tea-bagger
/straw-man

Of Trash And Numbers

Two topics, inter-related. Garbage and math. And perhaps even some garbage math. Yes, they can be both individual and mutually similar. Let's get to it...

After the 9/12 teabagger rally in D.C., a couple things happened. The first was the whole set-up with the crowd estimate, first reported by Michelle Malkin, that upwards of 2 million people attended the event. You probably already know this story but essentially, some jerkoff hopped on stage and shouted out a crowd estimate of between 1.2 and 2 million people and then attributed it, falsely, to ABC News.

This was not true and ABC News actually put up a front page post on their website debunking the myth of that estimate. By this point, the bullshit that had been thrown to the wall had stuck and it began to trickle down to the other lowlife Republicant bloggers. However, it seemed once the truth was revealed, all the conservatives started linking to some UK based media source. Funny that, considering that they couldn't even trust FOX News this time around, as FOX News was also reporting the more accurate number of 50-70k people in attendance that day.

Yeah, who knew?

Next, the Republicants started posting pictures of an entirely different rally showing a packed National Mall. The only problem was that the picture itself was from a completely different rally some 10 or more years ago that was so easily disprovable (there was an entire MUSEUM missing in the picture that hadn't even been built yet at that time), it too was quickly laughed away.

However, the best I have seen so far is the irony in what I'm seeing emerge now. My favorite wingnut blogger in Philadelphia (whose blog I won't link because she knows who she is) has a post up comparing the cleanliness differences between Obama supporters during the inauguration and the heavenly sparkling 9/12 teabaggers, with their golden tea leaves and baby tear teabag strings trailing not far behind them.

Here's a picture and, given all the BS surrounding 50 billion people crowd estimates, who even KNOWS if this pic is even remotely related to the 9/12 rally in D.C. the other day but regardless, here's a picture purporting to show just how clean those awfully nice and gentle teabaggers left D.C.



And now compare that with the awful, no-good, nasty America hating Obama supporters the day of the inauguration:



Now here's where the garbage and the numbers become related. I don't think anyone has properly put into perspective just how many people attended the inauguration of Barack Obama so I looked for some photos and I think I found one that gives a pretty good visual idea of how many people we're talking about here:



(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

When you have that many fucking people, sure - you're going to get this:



We didn't really see that at the 9/12 rally did we?

Anyone have any ideas why?

(P.S. - If you WOULD like to see some pictures of the aftermath of the 9/12 rally in terms of what actually WAS left behind, you can look at this.)

WPVI Story Addresses City Surveillance Cameras Covered With Trash Bags

It's great to see local media covering this very important story today, August 12th, 2009

PHILADELPHIA - August 12, 2009 (WPVI) -- There's a cover-up involving dozens of surveillance cameras in Philadelphia... literally.

Those cameras have been covered with black plastic bags. Of course, in that state, they're of little use in the fight against crime.

It was back in late 2007 when the city announced, with fanfare, that it was installing 250 surveillance cameras over the next year.

Well, here it is mid-2009 and Action News has learned that only 161 have been installed.

And of those, only 98 are useable. Another 63 of them are covered with bags, waiting to be activated.

I only wrote about it on July 9th and July 11th...

...of last year...