The Interstate
So, I have to share this.
Tonight on City Council in Macon we had a special meeting. The mayor insisted we approve two mitigation plans relating to the I-75/I-16 construction in Macon. If the proposals were not approved by midnight, the project funding would be held up another year because of the federal budget year.
Anyway, Jaime Webb (James H. Webb) a realtor in town and anti-road improvements activist spoke. He said that the City Council could kill the plan, but because we don’t have a financial incentive to stand up to the DOT, we would not do it. In effect, he accused the five council members who support his position of being bribed by him. It was a truly bizarre argument and I truly thought he was going to cry.
Last week, he sent out this amazing email in which he called me smarmy and pandering for speaking in favor of the mitigation proposals. This week, I decided I’d cut to the chase and get on with it. His antics tonight were just icing on the cake for me, knowing what I was about to do.
I knew five members of Council opposed the mitigation plans and ten of us supported them. It takes a 10 person vote to call the question and shut off debate. I made sure to push my button first to be recognized, made the motion, and under parliamentary procedure the movant gets to be the first one to speak. Instead of speaking, I called the question.
Ten of us voted to cut off debate before it began on both issues. There was no point. One person would have slandered the mayor. One would have declared the meeting unnecessary. No one would have been persuaded. And we would have been there all night while five members of Council cried, questioned, and cast aspersions at the process and mayor.
Ten of us shut it down before it could begin. In effect, ten of us played poker and five played checkers. The ten of us called the opposition’s bluff, right when the opposition thought they were crowning a king.
And we got the mitigation plans passed. I was happy to be the bad guy for everyone else by making the motion and calling the question to shut down debate. I had fun. It was a good night. Maybe I ought to run for re-election after all.
*Another irony: Before I got on Council, it only took eight votes to cut off debate. I worked successfully to require ten votes to cut off debate. Two members voted against my proposal because, in her words, if you have the votes to pass, you should be able to cut off debate. Naturally, she was appalled that we cut off debate tonight.
It was bloody brilliant.
Why Superman Doesn’t Fly at Night
Evelyn has discovered the old Super Friends cartoon with Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Superman, along with Melvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog. This is the original seventies cartoon, not the updated version in the eighties with Hawk Man, the Wonder Twins, etc.
Anyway, we watched the Super Friends tonight before bed time. Christy had Bible Study in the other room. Evelyn and I curled up in bed with the laptop, iTunes, and the Super Friends purchased from Apple.
When I told her it wast time for bed, we headed upstairs without complaint to get her ready. After we’d said prayers, we had this conversation:
EVELYN: Daddy, we go outside now and look for the super guys?
ME: No sweetheart, it’s bedtime.
EVELYN: But Daddy, I bet Super Man is outside with all those super guys. Let’s get a flashlight and go find him.
ME: No sweetheart, it’s bedtime.
EVELYN: Why?
ME: Because it’s dark. And besides, Super Man doesn’t fly at night. It’s too dark for him.
EVELYN: Why?
ME: Because it’s dark and he might get sucked up in a jet engine if no one can see him flying.
EVELYN: Oh, okay. Night, night Daddy. We go find the super guys tomorrow morning, ok?
ME: Okay.
Kids are awesome.
Barack Obama Was Too Worried About Laundry To Rally Democrats
On MSNBC earlier, Bill Burton, Barack Obama’s spin master said
I mean on saturday night when the negotiators were all getting together, [McCain] wasn’t making phone calls and doing the work. He was actually out at one of the finest restaurants in Washington, D.C., on a double date with his wife. I think Joe Lieberman was there with their wives. I understand they had a great meal. It was a great restaurant. What we need to do is put the rubber to the road here. Get on the phone, get the leaders together, and get the votes that we need. And when his campaign said they brought the House Republicans to the table and had gotten the votes, they actually didn’t. Two-thirds of House Republicans voted against this today. That’s not the sort of leadership we need. We need somebody in the White House right now who can actually bring the people together to get things done.
Got that? McCain and his wife were out to eat Saturday night with Joe Lieberman and his wife, instead of making sure the GOP had enough votes to pass the bailout plan. Got it?
Good.
What was Obama doing?
He was at a political rally then off, in his own words, to worry about his dry cleaning.
“It’s just trickling down a little bit here. That’s O.K. I’m going to have to get my dry cleaning going too.”
Maybe had Obama been more engaged, the 95 Democrats in the House who voted against the plan would have passed it.
How is it McCain’s fault? Seriously . . . Obama was staying in a luxury hotel, campaigning, and getting his dry cleaning done instead of working to get the Democrat votes necessary to pass the plan.
95 Democrats voted against Barack Obama’s position and it is John McCain’s fault?
I guess that is heavy starch we can believe in.
The Pleasant Hill Mitigation Plan
I’ll be voting to accept the contract with the Department of Transportation on the Pleasant Hill mitigation related to the I-16/I-75 construction.
For all the people in opposition, I hear you. I understand your position. But here’s the rub: the plan is going forward whether we like it or not. I know there are some who suggest otherwise, but the Feds and State have made it clear — Alternative 7 will be built.
So we can either work with them on the mitigation or not. If we don’t, Pleasant Hill gets torn up with no improvements.
So . . .
Yeah, I really have writers block or something. Can’t get really fired up to write about much of anything lately.
“Just Boys”
Last night, Evelyn took a little six shooter toy pistol outside to shoot the bugs. She left it outside and this morning woke me up at 8 o’clock.
“Daddy, I need my gun,” she said. Gun, of course, had about six syllables in it.
I got up, opened the back door, and picked her gun up for her. She thanked me and then pointed the gun at me. “Pow, pow,” she said.
I told her we don’t shoot people with her gun.
“Nooooo,” she replied. “Just boys.”
I’m pretty sure she meant bugs, but it was pretty funny nonetheless.
For Your Own Sake, Stop the Jesus to Obama Comparisons
Being a partisan, I want to win this election. And I think you lefties have come upon a winning strategy to help us do it. The whole “Jesus is to Obama as Pontius Pilate is to Sarah Palin” analogy will do nothing but inflame the senses of the evangelical community, others who recognize the offensiveness of the statement, and the edge of voters needed to push John McCain toward victory.
So for Republican victory, keep saying it.
But the greater part of me must encourage you on the left to desist from this statement. Should you buy into this, I think you endanger your eternity because you blaspheme the Lord.
Jesus was not a community organizer. By training on Earth he was a carpenter. By design before the world began he is the Son of God and Truth itself.
You all on the left tend to get bogged down in moral relativism — the whole idea that what is right for me may not be right for you; truth to many of you is fungible. Truth, of course, is in no way fungible. We may, on both sides of the aisle, conveniently avert our eyes now and then to the Truth, but it remains.
To say that Christ is a community organizer demeans the Savior of mankind and denies Him for who He is. Saul Alinsky, the man who, to quote Wikipedia, “is often credited with laying the foundation for the grassroots political organizing that dominated the 1960s” dedicated his book that started the community organizer fad to Lucifer — “the very first radical.” Lucifer was a community organizer in he Alinsky model. Lucifer convinced Adam and Eve of a reality not quite real and caused the world’s problems.
That is what a community organizer does. He convinces people that a problem barely perceived is very real and incites the community to fix the problem — no matter that the problem may be nonexistent or, if existent, a small matter. That is why Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.
Christ organized no community but Heaven’s own. To say Christ is a community organizer treads to near comparing Him to Satan. To equate Him to Barack Obama is offensive and it is at its base blasphemous. Blasphemy is the eternal, unforgivable sin.
You continue this analogy at your peril and at my political victory. But your soul is far more important than any political victory. So I suggest you stop. And if this post just emboldens you to make the comparison even more, you are most likely already lost.
Narnia
Every year we go to the beach for a week after Labor Day. I take with me a set of books to read. The year before it was the Master & Commander series. Last year was Harry Potter. This year was Narnia.
I had mostly forgotten Narnia. It had been a long time since I read the series, and even then not the whole thing.
I have gone back and read it all the whole way through this time. What a delight it is.
The Jesus and Pilate Meme
Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) repeated the growing lefty meme from the floor of the House today.
You know the one: Jesus was a community organizer an Pilate was a Governor. The left, now from the floor of the House, is comparing Barack Obama to Jesus and Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate.
There is just one big difference.
Christ knew when life began and Pontius Pilate thought the issue above his pay grade.
Of course the left, which has rejected Christ for the One, probably does not know that, so they think it works for them.
What’s even more interesting though is that even Barack Obama has never been able to explain what a community organizer does. Well now we know. A community organizer saves men’s souls, delivering them to eternal life.
Who knew?
How long before the lefties throw off their change rings and replace them with WWOD bracelets?
The E-Bay Line
That is what will resonate after people have forgotten the rest of the speech.
Yes, Sarah Palin sold the governor’s private jet. She put it on Ebay.