Sheesh Monty, grumpy much? Are you so narrow minded that you can’t accept other people may have a different point of view than you? Sorry you didn’t think those jokes are funny. . . guess what? Some of us do.
So “sum up all the facts” you want. You can be the wet-blanket party-pooper type all you desire. Go forth and try to censor or rip down all the GW jokes you want by throwing your words and opinions at them.
Let me know how that turns out for you.
I see nothing wrong with jokes, NothingMan. It’s pure bullshit that I dislike. But, hey, if you like living in bovine sludge, enjoy!
I’m kind of surprised that rjung and Anthracite don’t see what a big deal this is. Sorry, but you aren’t in Kansas anymore.
It wasn’t a matter of people just being stuck in their homes without power. That’s no big deal.
The problem was that people could not get to their homes at all.
You’ve gotta understand. If you’re in Manhattan, you can’t just get in your car and drive home. You don’t have a car there, and even if you did, you wouldn’t have been able to get it on and off the island. Nobody could come get you either. And traveling within the island was nearly impossible, too, unless you were on foot. And while Manhattan is a small island in some senses, it still is a hell of a long walk from your office on Wall Street to your ritzy upper East Side apartment.
People were stranded everywhere. Millions of stranded people sounds like a national crisis to me. Especially since they didn’t know how long the outage would go on.
The outage didn’t cause me any great problems. My power was out for about 5 hours. It took me twice as long a usual to get home, but since I live and work in Jersey, I could travel by car. The next town over had power, so my neighbor went and got food, and we all had a picnic on their patio. It was lots of fun. I rather enjoyed it. My best friend, on the other hand, got stranded in Newark. That was not lots of fun.
I guess people in other parts of the country just assume it’s easy to get from place to place because they drive everywhere. NYC is completely dependent on its multiple mass transit systems, and if they go down, then people are just stuck.
Actually, I am. 
In my posts, I said that it sucked royally for New York, New Yorkers, and New York Dopers. I don’t know what was ambiguous about that, but I guess something must have been.
My posts have contended only that this was not a “National Emergency” that required the Great White Father to come on the air and speak to us scared little savages out here about it to calm us all down. I can assure you that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that the President, any President, is going to do to get the power on one minute sooner for New York, and I think the Governor and mayor of New York handled themselves and the events very, very well. I told my friends today at one of the “islanded” power plants that “Remember - Bush wants that power back on NOW, little mister!” and got a big laugh from the other end of the line.
But I most certainly did not contend that it was not a big deal for those affected.
I did offer up that having your power go out when it’s below freezing is a big deal, and possibly a bigger deal. And during the ice storm, many of the roads were closed completely as well, so people weren’t driving much here either. Kansas is completely dependent on it’s personal transit systems, and “if they go down, then people are just stuck” as well. And some were stuck at work, or at someone else’s house. The only difference is, they were stuck at a place which was cooling to life-threatening levels overnight. Of course, it’s only Kansas, and we all know how we’re just a bunch of ignorant uncultured racist homophobe farm bastards out here anyhow*, so who cares, right?
I had no intention of this being a “my Dad’s bigger than your Dad” issue.
[sub]* Yes, I know the microphone’s on! 
[/sub]
Okay. I’m a mid-westerner, denizen of flyover country and skeptical of media hype, but when news of the power failure broke my muddled reactions were torn between terrorist attacks or domestic screw-ups.
Either way, something very hinky happened.
When a good chunk of the eastern seaboard–an eigth of the continent or thereabouts?–gets totally screwed for basic power, that isn’t political. It was the proverbial elephant in a phone booth: too damned obvious to ignore. Who the hell wouldn’t wonder, or at least be the slightest bit curious–or concerned–how and why this happened?
I’m not playing “gotcha” politics here. That’s a game that corrupts anybody who takes it as a game or blood sport. (If the shoe fits, wear it. And walk in it.) In a nation of rampant with energy idiocies–CA elections, anyone?–Enron, terrorist red/orange/burnt umber alerts, etc.–how in the HELL should the entire eastern seaboard without power go without comment from our President? This wasn’t a minor, local glitch. Context, folks.
Bush wasn’t ambushed by asking for his input. What the fuck did he expect? He’s the President, the Chief Exec, the nexus. I don’t expect–or like or trust–glibness. But incoherent blathering?
Please. I’m a librarian and had to cut the mustard for at least rudimentary public speaking before I got hired. The question wasn’t unfair and Bush’s handling of it was a fair measure of state craft.
Veb
The reason this was a bad thing is that it is a big flashing sign to terrorists saying “what the f**k are you doing messing around with rocket launchers when you could be taking down half the Eastern seaboard by snipping a few wires?” It is also a pretty good sign that whatever we’ve been doing with the energy market over the last decade and so has not been all wine and roses: it’s resulted in a sloppy system that can’t cooperate in the areas it needs to.
I’m from Los Angeles (which has several million people in it, World Eater). What’s this bizarre notion of going around town without an automobile? Is this some quaint Amish custom or something? 
Seriously, though, unless Godzilla went through the city recently and tore up the place, doesn’t NYC have several perfectly serviceable bridges for the car-driving public to use?
[slight hijack]
My favorite Bush speech was when he was welcoming back some soldiers from Iraq. He stated that he was happy that they could now see their loved ones, lost his train of thought, did some umming and uhing, then went on to describe what loved ones are (wife, husband, parents, etc). As if he had just coined the term ‘loved ones’ and wanted everyone to understand what this new term meant.
[/hijack]
Bob
Truth be told, Monty, you old yodelfart, I’m not entirely sure. Rule of thumb: if its lame, its probably mine own. If you drop to the floor and roll about clutching your sides in unhindered hilarity, I most likely stole it. No doubt the same line has occured to literally thousands of people who watch Commander Bunnypants display his wholly underserved military swagger. Rather like watching Elmer Fudd channel George Patton.
Is the above sarcasm? If not, it’s a very succinct statement of amusingly intense left-wing conspriacy theory bullshit.
Bush-haters never fail to provide amusement.
“He stole the election!”
After the near tie in Florida, it was up to the lawyers. Bush’s legal argument was better.
“He’s stupid”.
Uh-huh. He’s just a puppet of the evil right-wing. His strings are being pulled by “big oil” and “greedy CEO’s”. Please. I’m quite sure the above quote will be taken out of context at any moment. Enjoy.
“He can’t speak well in public.”
Clinton was a smooth talker…and a man with no moral compass whatsoever.
Enjoy life until 2008. I’m sure you’ll have much more to complain about between now and then.
elucidator: Your last posting did make me laugh some. Too bad you continue to hash around in…well, it can’t be ignorance because I’m sure you know the guy was in the military.
Apparently you are referring to his career in the Texas Air National Guard, valiantly defending the skies above Amarillo from attack by Viet Cong aircraft. There is considerable controversy as regards his fullfillment of his committment, as he seems to have wandered off base for a beer and forgotten how to get back.
But what the heck, its only a year. Many military veterans on this board will tell you that drifting away from your enlistment, while technically referred to as “desertion”, if generally met with kindly and avuncular indulgence by military authorities.
and did a damn fine job of it, too, for I don’t recall a single instance of a successful Viet Cong raid on the area at the time.
I was under the impression that all of Bush’s speeches take place during a blackout.
I think you are confusing his speeches with his press conferences.
Yes I agree totally. Bush handeled the situation masterfully. And as if inspired by God has pushed to upgrade the national grid system years before this happened. Too bad many with political agendas have blocked such effort. Maybe now we can follow through with Bush’s insite.
elucidator: So you admit then that you are fully aware that the man was, in fact, in a branch of the Armed Forces. I refer you back to my comment about ignorance. I also remind you that I, personally, do not think the man is a good president nor did I vote for his electoral slate. I won’t tell stupid lies about him, though.
What 'lucy said was that the swagger was undeserved. Anyone who uses his father’s influence to secure a cushy National Guard spot during a war, thus avoiding the combat that other less connected, less priviledged and much better young men could not avoid should at least be embarrassed about looking real soldiers in the eye. Anyone who then feels entitled to completely blow-off even the limited, pretend service which has been set up for him during the war (thus technically making him a wartime deserter) should be ashamed to even walk onto an aircraft carrier. The fact that this idiot put on a costume and strutted around in front of the front of the troops like he was one of them was insulting and pathetic.
He’s like the retarded kid who hangs out with the football team. They let him wear a jersey and he thinks he’s part of the squad. The problem is that retarded kids are lovable an endearing. Shrub is just an asshole poseur.
So you’re touting the same bullshit, hey, DtC? I’m wondering how the rest of the National Guard feels about you saying they’re not real Soldiers, that their service is pretend. And he wasn’t wearing a costume. He was wearing what one’s supposed to wear when one is a passenger in that aircraft. I’m also wondering why it’s so freaking hard for you to get that through your skull.
A couple of quibbles, Monty. Firstly, there wasn’t the slightest neccesity for Fearless Misleader to be ferried out to his Gloat on the Boat by way of that specific airplane, it was well within range of the usual helicopter ride. You would be hard pressed to find a knowledgeable person who wouldn’t tell you that landing an airplane on a carrier is much more risky that landing a helicopter. So to what end was this risk taken?
I, and my estimable co-conspirator, suggest that the entire purpose was photo-op. That such an arrangement was made with the deliberate intent of featuring GeeDubya in a “military” light.
Of course, if you have some information that has escaped our attention, to the effect that such a stunt was unavoidable, please so enlighten us. Absent that, I think we are entirely reasonable to assume that the action was taken with propaganda purposes in mind.