Author: luimbe

water mains in Philadelphia

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Another rupture

The city has restored water to most of the Old City area affected earlier Saturday when a water main break flooded streets.

Mayor Nutter showed up to tell residents that they may still be experiencing low water pressure but water was flowing again.

“The water department has done an excellent job in shutting the main down in about an hour,” said Nutter about the break in the 48-inch transmission main that connected to a 36-inch pipe that sent hundreds of thousands of gallons of water gushing into the streets.

He said most of the water had been turned on. “We are experiencing low water pressure for some of the homes in the immediate area.”

Nutter said the city would do a full investigation to determine the cause and how this break compares to others that occurred this year in other areas of the city.

“There’s really no consistency from one water main break to the next,” said Nutter. “Some of it is certainly aging infrastructure but sometimes they get a hairline crack because of the amount of water and pressure which can blow a part of it out.”

source: Nutter: Water flowing again to most of Old City – Philly.com.

The mains are old and if they aren’t then the streets, road beds and casings around them are old. Philadelphians need money to be spent to repair and upgrade water mains in our city, one of the oldest large cities in the country. But you know, the market will correct this.

 

Reason 1 to vote against Mitt: This mutha’ f##&r plagiarised “Clear Eyes. Full Heart. Can’t Lose.” from Coach Taylor

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This cuts across all humanity as it concerns awful phrase stealin’ Mitt Romney and one of my favorite TV Shows of all time: Friday Night Lights. Well at least filmmaker Peter Berg , the cousin of former Democrat Buzz Bissinger, knows Mitt Romney is a snake!

In a letter to the Romney campaign sent Friday and obtained exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter, Berg calls the use of “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose” an act of stealing. “Your politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series,” Berg writes in the letter. “The only relevant comparison that I see between your campaign and Friday Night Lights is in the character of Buddy Garrity — who turned his back on American car manufacturers selling imported cars from Japan.”

BOOM! Vice President Joe Biden ain’t the only one gettin’ loose on Romney/Ryan!

Mitt Romney is the guy who sent coach Taylor to the East Dillon Lions and then took his spoiled kid and left the minute East Dillon started kicking Dillon Panther ass.

I can hear a tumblr about this right now, but I can’t wait for this meme to materialize. Instead, after listening to Coach Taylor, I’m going to cure a disease, or save people in a fire or a cat in a tree or go pick up my laundry and go out and get lit. Probably the last thing, but if I had to anything on that list, I could do it…you know why? “Cle…” …never mind.

“This is a game that’s going to cost us a lot down the road.”

Ricky Watters, Philadelphia Eagles 1995 defeat of the Dallas Cowboys
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Ricky Watters, Philadelphia Eagles 1995 defeat of the Dallas Cowboys

Ricky Watters, Philadelphia Eagles 1995 defeat of the Dallas Cowboys

Ricky Watter’s, best known here in Philly for the infamous utterance of “For who, for what?” and not his stellar play will have his number retired this year.

Ricky Watters’ mind is broken, too.

Watters is among the legion of players involved in concussion litigation against the NFL.

He said he had dozens of concussions, from the time he starred at Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, then at Notre Dame, then in San Francisco, Philadelphia and, finally, Seattle, his last stop in a 10-year NFL career.

“Not that I knew what a concussion was then,” Watters said.

How many times did he play without his full mental faculties?

“Hundreds of times.”

Watters ignored the signs: headaches, fatigue, forgetfulness. His wife of 13 years, Catherina, was his fianceé when he was in Philadelphia. The Ricky she knew was disappearing: the Ricky with a photographic memory; the tireless Ricky who always followed through. She begged him to file for disability.

“How I’m going to file for disability, when I’m Superman?” Watters asked.

This is how.

Watters and his wife were bickering one day in 2004 about something she claimed to have told him. Again.

Ricky Jr. spoke up:

“Dad. She did tell you that.”

Watters filed for his disability.

Certainly, he earned it.

[…]

Watters will keep Catherina on his hip, so, when he sees somebody whose name he cannot recall – somebody he might have met an hour before or 17 years before – she can whisper the name in his ear, because he might not remember.

When the Eagles added Watters in 1995, they also signed Kevin Turner to be their fullback.

Turner, who has ALS, is one of the poster children for the concussion issue.

Turner never shied from contact.

Watters did. And, that day, he defended it:

“I’m not going to trip up there and get knocked out. For who? For what? I mean, there’s another day.”

source: Marcus Hayes: Watters lives with aftereffects of punishing football career – Page 2 – Philly.com.

Watters was a champion who left the Bay too soon to become a legend in San Francisco, became maligned character in Philly for being a jerk while carrying the offense on his back behind Turner, and in Seattle he became a model leader while holding off future MVP Shaun Alexander from a starting role. If you want to talk running backs, in my opinion, Watters is a better back than Jerome Bettis any day (In that same opinion Bettis is a shoe in Hall of Famer). But in the end, the question of a young rich and famous jerk is the question many of us should be asking about an soon to be 10 billion dollar a year business called the NFL run by owners willing to lock these players out over money and benefits for retired players.

Watters was a star at Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, just like current Eagles running back Lesean McCoy. Watters was a workhorse dual threat running back, just like McCoy is now. McCoy is better liked than Ricky, but in the end it may not matter, because in the end they are just human beings. If you think the fans are all sympathetic, they aren’t. Just think of the “midwest” nice shown Matt Cassel when he got knocked out last weekend on his team’s home field in Kansas City and the fans cheered because Cassel hasn’t been playing well lately. Chiefs offensive tackle Eric Winston eloquently and forcefully addressed this savagery in the heartland:

“I probably won’t live as long because I play this game”. Eric Winston has a wife, a family, that can’t be easy for them to hear. It can’t be easy for him to say out loud. It’s a stark admission if the truth of playing under a football helmet. He understands the numbers game around. The abnormally high incidence rates of early onset Alzheimer’s, ALS and other maladies that befall football players. As these numbers become more apparent, the spectators are becoming less aware of the game.

The fan’s are developing an increasingly cold, sterile relationship to the game. The average fan is priced out of the game. We watch the NFL red zone and Sports Center highlight clips. We see plays, snippets of what the game is. Highlights. A player gets crunched, we see the player carted off, neck immobilized with a thumbs up sign and everyone goes back to the next highlight. We don’t hear or see the speed and impact live as much as we used to. With penalties for players taking off helmets and the advent of million dollar signing bonuses, players no longer are guys who might live down the street. We the fans, yes we, are beginning to let football players become numbers to us. Money lost in a parlay bet, a bad season for a running back costing us a spot in the playoffs in a league or a hobbled player botching a play so we don’t have bragging rights of a Super Bowl win to shut down trash talk from rival fans around the water cooler at our jobs.

“For who, for what?” reconsidered.

Dear undecided Liberal Obama 2008 voter….

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Dear undecided Liberal Obama 2008 voter,

Yes. I know. I know. Drones. Drug War. Gitmo is still open. Afghanistan surge. Shirley Sherrod. Abusing War Powers to bomb Libya. Prosecuting whistleblowers. I am not going to minimize, these are failings to the liberal ethic or poorly executed initiatives within the Obama Presidency.

The only thing he did that Republicans don’t disagree with? Killing Bin Laden. Friend, we signed up for the Democratic/Obama team in 2008. that means we committed to a ticket with a vote. John Cole runs it down: The Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his party have promised to take back everything Obama accomplished that you DO like. Polls be damned, the Democratic convention lifted senate candidates. If Obama sinks in the swing states far enough to lose, that’s a much higher probability that the Republicans take the Senate, keep the house with crushing majorities and legislate as they have promised their base.

If there isn’t one thing you like about Obama’s first term, fine, but that doesn’t make you a “real liberal”, it makes you a real fan of fantasy. You believe you can sit home and if Romney wins it’s no bigs, because he’s just the same as Obama. Instead of being ok with another Obama term, you will be more ok with a Romney term because you think it will be like an Obama term, even though nothing Romney has promised to his base can lead you to believe that . You believe health care was a waste because Arianna Huffington/Howard Dean freaked out when we didn’t get single payer for all and said: better to start over! You believe if Romney repeals every Obama bill, then good! People will hate it and then by January 2020, we will have to elect a real liberal to be president.

You believe that on that fateful January day, a mischievous, heavy drinking, good hearted Leprechaun who believes in gold backed currency and yet can cobble together a balanced budget will be Speaker of the House. He’ll collegially conference with a Senate Majority Leader who is a Magical Talking Horse granted personhood under the Mr. Ed act of 2019 who will spirit the rascally Speaker’s bills through the US Senate chambers with the speed of Secretariat and down Pennsylvania avenue with the majesty of a Unicorn . This magical steed will ram right through a filibuster and right into the the Oval Office.

There a magic sword wielding knight who also goes by the title President of the United States will sign it with her quill pen and on her honor restore everything liberal (and more) that was reversed during Romney/Ryan’s 1st term. All of Marcellus Shale will be un-fracked. All of the dead people with pre-existing conditions in 2013 will be put in time machines and get the uncapped, health care they needed before they died. All of the brown and black people sold subprime mortgages by Wells Fargo’s robo-signing mortgage bot will be given mansions in school districts, their children will be given tutors so that they can become doctors and their credit will be repaired. All the liberal things we will have!

  • you believe it will work out the perfect candidate exists because of magic.
  • you believe that two different people from two different parties will do exactly the same thing no matter what.
  • you really don’t care about liberalism, you just are pretty sure you’ll be personally fine either way

Barack Obama is what a liberal, Democratic president looks like. Look back in history and you’ll see that. He’s been better than most. Democratic Liberalism is not a revolution. It never will be. It is a slow march with fits and starts. If this doesn’t look liberal enough to you, then fine, but it’s not because Obama’s the same as Mitt Romney. If you voted for Obama/Biden in 2008 based on liberal ideas, then you should vote for Obama/Biden in 2012. So sorry. Ok. sorry, he wasn’t the awesomest President in your dreams. He is still better than the alternative by far. At least when judged by the liberal ethic. KIT!

Laundered History

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It may be that expect better of him or that I may be being sucked in by a (hopefully tongue in cheek) troll article, but whatever… Marc Lamont Hill’s 15 most overrated white people is supposed to be some sort of rebuttal to the unquestioningly awful elevation of a murderous, self aggrandized charaltan, European explorer, slave trader, colonizer and royal private contracter Christopher Columbus, who has been refashioned into an American icon. Columbus Day is a holiday based on a staggering array of myths about an actual human being, but it’s a fraud used to manufacture the romantic archetype of the virtuous colonizer in the brutal times that led to the founding of European colonies in America. I don’t see how making a list of “overrated white people” serves the purpose of establishing a more accurate historical perspective of Christopher Columbus or establishing a better perspective on the other 15 white people Hill talks about.

Mitt Romney at VMI advocates for more war, more bluster, no sense

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According to Mitt Romney, the crux of Obama’s mistakes in the Middle East:

But yet undecided Buzz Bissinger became a Romney man because he somehow believes Romney’s “move to the center” isn’t a flip-flop, because the real Mitt was the debate Mitt because he had that flair. Dear liberals: Let’s just calm down. These are called “bandwagons” in sports. Let’s just stay on ours.

The portrait of the undecided voter

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Shorter Buzz Bissinger:

I like Mitt Romney because of years of saying he would do the opposite, this one night, he looked into my eyes and said Buzz, forget all that I said before, and remember that I have compassion for all of you who don’t work for PBS especially millionaires like you Buzz who Obama would cast into the ocean with his “Clinton era tax rate and Millionaire/billionaire Pariah act”. This retirement age Mormon who has fundraised more than campaigned: he’s going to rejuvenate all of us. And he won’t bomb Iran because I feel it. Did Obama solve the “Afghanistan” problem? No? That’s why Romney would be better in Iran.

The longer you are undecided, I have to believe this type of political calculation is typical.

Romney up in polls after confident shaking the etch-a-sketch

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Romney’s bounce is here:

Still, as I wrote yesterday, my guess is that the forecast model is still being somewhat too conservative about accounting for the change in the environment. In a good number of the polls, Mr. Romney has not only improved his own standing but also taken voters away from Mr. Obama’s column, suggesting that he has peeled off some of Mr. Obama’s softer support in addition to gaining ground among undecided voters.

source: Oct. 6: Romney Maintains Poll Momentum – NYTimes.com.

As significant as that is, that may be all.

Sullivan is calling Obama Al Gore and he’s never seen this before. Al Gore is saying Obama wasn’t used to that high an altitude. Taibbi says they both lost. Obama is being knocked because even those his closing argument was that he would fight for the American people, he didn’t fight for his record or plan:

“The president seemed under-energized, and in particular, he didn’t really go on attack mode, and we were looking, we the faithful, who worked very hard for him four years ago, for that,” he said.

Carol Doeppers, his wife, and a former state chair for Common Cause, said she “missed [Obama’s] fire in the belly.”

“There wasn’t that fire, and Mitt had it,” she said. “We can only hope that he gets the real aggressive force behind him again. But last night was a down night.”

In the end, if one takes into account Reagan’s rebound after tanking the 1st debate against Mondalein 1984, Obama’s debate improvements in 2008 and David Axelrod’s signalling of a debate strategy change, it’s not time to panic. Decathlon, not a horse race. There’s time to adjust.

On Philadelphia Eagles Ring of Honor Inductee Brian Dawkins

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Brian Dawkins was a fundamentally good player to have in your town because he was a good person to have in your community. There’s a bunch of stories like this one, some I’ve heard from people I know personally who know this first hand. This is how he is.

Gary, like Dawkins, was exhausted after the game. Gary was in the final battle of his long fight with prostate cancer. He was having trouble walking, in constant pain, and fighting severe fatigue.

This would be the last Eagles game that Gary was able to cover.

Dawkins emerged from the locker room barely able to walk, his face clearly reflecting the pain he was in. He asked me where we were going to do the interview. I explained that Gary was waiting for him, but it was a long walk to the other side of the stadium. That was as far as Gary could make it before he needed to sit and rest.

A quick discussion ensued between myself, Dawkins and Eagles media relations manager Ryan Nissan. It was quickly determined that Dawkins was too hurt to make the walk. We would have to cancel the interview. That is, until I said one simple thing to Dawkins, “Gary’s in bad shape, he’s having a really rough day.”

Dawkins looked me in the eye and said, “Let’s go.”
source: Brian Dawkins’ message to Gary Papa | 6abc.com.

I normally don’t post this type of stuff, but this is not the only “Dawkins story” I know of. He was inducted into the Eagles “ring of honor” last Sunday at halftime of the Eagles game vs. the New York Giants. He definitely belongs.

Comcast Sports Network is airing a Brian Dawkins Special at 10:30PM.

“We need the labor board to explain the numbers.” says pundit holding BLS report explaining numbers

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Every time the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a jobs report, Morning Joe’s panel takes time to specifically discuss them in the third hour of their broadcast. During this segment Joe Scarborough quite often cites BLS numbers from his time in office during the Clinton presidency and Reagan’s years in office as fact, as any sane human being should. These numbers are used as guidelines for adjusting unemployment benefits, employment programs and all types of public and private sector policy.

This thing I can’t make sense of makes no sense.

Today, when the number was released and it was 7.8% Scarborough said something felt odd about the jobs report. he literally said “these numbers don’t add up”. They literally do add up. BLS revises previous numbers every month. Mike Barnicle admits he is “totally unqualified” to give his opinion on the matter, and Joe agrees that all of them are. That’s odd being that they have been giving their opinion on the matter for about 5 years whenever the number is released. Willie Giest, says that no one on the panel is suggesting that the Obama administration corrupted the jobs report, what they are suggesting is that BLS’s report makes no sense without knowing how to make sense of it.

“We need the labor department to explain.” It’s a report, BLS explains the number in the report.

“This is an inexact science.” Yes, forecasting and estimation is inexact by definition. Which is what BLS does from a variety of data sets is inexact, but precise and a very close approximation. Then Joe insists there has to be a “better way to do this”. The better way to get employment numbers would be to require every employer to report their payroll in full to BLS every month. That’s not happening.

That’s not as bad as Jack Welch who basically accused Obama and Axelrod of sending some hipster thugs or FOI henchmen or LGBT cat burglars to strong arm the BLS report guy to juke the numbers for Obama’s benefit after the debate.

Who knew the key to Six Sigma black belt ninja gaiden enlightenment is: denial!

As if Obama couldn’t have used positive below 8% job numbers any other time between the passing of the stimulus and the Friday morning! (note: Mika’s job in all of this is to apologize for Jack Welch’s wild accusation)

After the Dow Jones Industrial Average started rising after the first few months of the Obama Administration, no one accused Chicago of heading to the Dow to juke those numbers. In fact their mental image of President Obama (Chicago Barry) had nothing to do with the rise in the Dow. These numbers based on speculation, were gospel. But only when it fell under Obama in 2009:

Dear Mr. President,

Unfortunately, it’s true. The stock market doesn’t like you.

Only one month in and investors are giving up. Another 30% haircut would put the Dow at 5000.

That’s all you need to know here. They are really shocked that in fact the Obama’s administration and the “uncertainty goblin” weren’t the end of Democracy and apple pie.

 

 

“The real Romney”

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Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:

The real Romney is the one who can communicate. He’s straight and direct and not fancy, forgivably jargony, but worried about America and sincere. That’s the Romney who showed up for the debate. Stay that guy!

Romney Deflates the President – WSJ.com.

Mitt Romney after 5 years of being the “Let Detroit go Bankrupt” advocator, proposed debt fueled $5 trillion dollar tax cutter, 47% ignorer and self deportation advocate who staged a subpar convention, botched his foreign trip, deployed an anemic ground game and kept a light campaign schedule engages in weeks of intensive debate prep that results in a stylistically solid one and one half hour debate performance where he denies any logical reading of his proposals and contradicts his previously established political positions, and now he’s the real Romney.

Dear Peggy Noonan: If you have to practice that hard to be the “real you” after five years of campaigning, it ain’t the real you.