Assholes of the Week: General Motors

President Obama bailed them out so they could spend our tax dollars on this?

The League of American Bicyclists calls it, "one of the more remarkably ill-conceived car ad campaigns of all time:"

If you are a student looking to add tens of thousands of dollars of long term debt, care little about the environment, and want to lump two tons of steel around campus while paying through the nose for insurance, gas, and parking…General Motors has got a perfect deal for you. Bonus: it’ll make you fat and unhealthy! All you have to do is give up that dorky bicycle that’s easy to use, practically free, gets you some exercise and is actually fun to ride.

Considering that 95% of all advertising is sexual innuendo, this is about as literal as you can get:

Copenhagenize.com points out the hysterical contradiction between GM's stated environmental values and their actions in the face of "...stiff and growing competition from bicycle traffic."

Except GM gets it wrong. There certainly is a correlation between sexual performance and the car you drive, or don't drive, rather. The woman in the ad, her eyes directed...(ahem) lower...is actually just fed up with her driver's erectile dysfunction.

No wonder Cav is so happy and Tony is such a grump:

That's where my laughter stops, because the fight is just beginning: in 2008 bicycles outsold cars for the first time since before World War II. While GM has now pulled these ads preying on the financial insecurities of broke college students, they serve to remind us that the stakes couldn't be higher in the battle for making our streets safer while building a sustainable economy.

Thursday Hate: "Welfare Queens"

Finally, someone has done the real math for the ever vigilant battle on busting the myth that commuter cyclists don't pay their way for road maintenance and construction.

The call to tax cyclists (and license them, or mandate helmet-use) is the kind of reactionary bullshit that is always proffered by those who simply wish prevent new cyclists from taking to the roads, which - as demonstrated here - is completely idiotic and against their self-interest. Why "conservatives" can't seem to get this kind of math in their heads when they're the ones who are supposed to be fiscally-minded...

Oh, well - soon it will no longer be a lifestyle "choice" but rather a lifestyle necessity and everyone can get over all the liberal vs. conservative, nonconformist conformist v conformist nonconformist, hipster douche v. jarhead douche crap and find something else to fight over. Like who to bet on in the Hunger Games.

Anyways...

According to Elly Blue, Grist.com's "Bikonomics" Professor: user gas taxes and fees only pay .07 cents per vehicle-mile-driven, not even coming close to offsetting a total of 5.6 cents/vehicle-mile cost. Add in external costs per mile driven for free parking, crashes, congestion, and land use, and the total now is nearly 34 cents a mile! That's deficit of almost 100% being paid for by state and local taxes!

Meanwhile, smaller, lighter, and cleaner cyclists pay almost the same in taxes while causing just 1 cent/mile traveled in damage costs.

Guess what that adds up to? The drivers - who harangue you constantly to "get the fuck on the sidewalk!" and to "pay your own way, freeloader!" - or just try to kill you - are the ones sucking at the government tit - to the tune of $3,000 a year, each, on average. You bikers? Yep, you're subsidizing these fucking welfare queens with a profit to the local government of about $260 each.

In fact, to run the average city road system at break even, there needs to be 12 bike commuters for every driver. Put that in your tea cup (in your H3's cup holder, of course) and drink it.

See you in the bike lane, Eric Cantor, you fucking communist.

Thursday Hate: Stupid Mudder F***ers

The Tough Mudder is coming to a city near you. And soft, pampered bros and bro hoes everywhere will be signing up and overcoming their self-esteem issues, one backwards Red Sox cap at a time.

Can you imagine one of these people meeting Pat Tillman - the ultimate example of self sacrifice and giving up the good life to be a part of something bigger?

George Will hates trains

Dear Mr. Will,

I occasionally enjoy your writings for the principled conservatism you express, but I found your February 27th contribution in Newsweek to be nothing but good, old-fashioned red-baiting at its most base:

"...the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."

High Speed Rail as is being pushed by the DOT and Obama is undoubtedly going to be wasteful, but don't use that to paint the entire mode of Rail. Rail is much more economical than driving in terms of fuel efficiency in $/passenger-kilometer, and the basis of the infrastructure is already there and just needs to be revived/updated.

Yes, if viewed as a purely government-funded exercise, rail is more expensive. But rail pays a greater percentage of its way through fares (62% of operating expenses) than driving does via gas taxes and tolls (less than 50% for the Federal Highway Administration).

Further, why is rail vilified for being subsidized by the government when the same can be said for our highways? Because its detractors can't let go of cheap gas (gone forever), and are deliberately comparing apples to oranges: on percentage of current mode-share vs. what is currently subsidized through taxes. Rail ridership grows every year, and track infrastructure with equal mode-share is much more economical than continued maintenance of interstate highways we can no longer afford.

Fighting "global warming" is an unwinnable battle but, rail also pays dividends in reducing pollution and improving public health. Why do you hate people's lungs, George?

There's no denying the $50-80 billion nationally per year in additional healthcare costs from transportation related pollution. To say nothing of the $150 billion in additional costs dealing with type 2 diabetes - a direct result of our car-dependent sedentary behavior.

The free ride of cheap oil is over, George. The airlines will soon be a millionaires club, and local travel and development will be increasingly more oriented towards transit, bicycling, and walking. The direct and indirect costs of a car-only transportation policy are simply too great to bear anymore. Roads are not an entitlement, and it's time to stop paying for them with the wallets of the middle-class and lower, as Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin.

Your argument is bullshit and reactionary. You know this, so you just resort to the fossilized cliché of calling people "communists." It is your only defense against people who don't embrace the pointless consumerism of car-culture or the fallacy of "individualism" predicated on an endowment of cheap, convenient energy. Against those who place more value on public space, community, efficiency, and health.

American individualism is far older the automobile; it was born out of finding a better way of doing things.

Humped Day: we deserve it

This results of yesterday's election were a rebuke of Obama's first two years in office, no doubt. There's a link going around, What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far? And, sorry, I have to answer, "so? Big fucking deal."

More mental heath care for veterans is great, it truly is. So is preventing providers from excluding pre-existing conditions upon new employment. These provisions would've been easily passed with bipartisan support. This is the kind of change people wanted.

The added entitlements of insuring millions of needy Americans who cost the most to treat because they suffer from chronic disease due to poor diet and lack of exercise, caused by government policy that was left completely untouched, was not the change people wanted. And the fact that it was passed without ANY bipartisan support at all has some people rightly pissed.

Especially after they just finished paying over $700 billion, instead of lining each of those motherfuckers up against a wall and putting a bullet in their brain, to the Wall Street criminals who fleeced the taxpayers that had any money left after they hatched a scheme to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, then bundled them up in fraudulently-rated securities and sold them again, while taking out insurance policies on all of them - those millions and millions of little financial hydrogen bombs, credit-default-swaps.

Who's to blame? Probably Republican Phil Graham for sponsoring the 1999 bill which repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 and removed the wall between commercial and investment banks, or the current standard-bearer for modern Democrats, Bill Clinton, who signed it. Take your pick.

But Barack Obama passed financial reform, you protest? Big fucking deal. Too late, the horses are already out of the barn. The accumulated debt at the core of it all - mortgages owned by people who couldn't pay them - debt that was greater than our combined ability to pay it, caused it all to fall apart. We got stuck with the bill and the world would end if we didn't pay.

This may not have come directly out of our pockets, but in the coming years, as our schools get worse, more bridges collapse, and ever-more reactionary politicians rescind funding for rail and complete streets infrastructure and planning, the criminality of it all will become very apparent.

The world, as we know it, is still going to end.

And this is what pisses me off the most: there is not one word about what the fuck Obama has done for sustainable transportation. The planning and ideas coming out of our Department of Transportation are the most innovative in years, former Republican Illinois state senator Ray LaHood is doing incredibly great work. And it may all be squandered by Obama breaking his word on being a bipartisan reformer. Not all conservatives are entirely beholden to special interests, some just think entitlement spending has gone too far. And when we're spending money to insure unhealthy people without first addressing WHY they are unhealthy, I think that's a good reason to say no.

And now, because of it, very real planning and the few good ideas to come out of this administration so far - transportation mitigating our dependence on cars - are at risk of being cut. In many states, such as Wisconsin, it's already on the block. And amid the permanent energy crunch that is being direly predicted in the coming years, we'll again be left forking over many more millions to pay for this next, now permanent, emergency.

And the folks who reacted to Obama's ineffectiveness will react the same way to these new Republican's ineffectiveness, by voting in even more reactionary politicians. All very sad, because our downfall is completely out of any politician's control. They will make Joe Miller and Sharon Angle (and her vague threats of "2nd amendment remedies") look like Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

Bookmark this blog entry. Title it, "was Brian right?" Come back in the fall of 2012 and see if we aren't ruing our continued dependence on cars and suburban sprawl. And I'm very sorry that your feelings are hurt because a bunch of gun-wielding insurgents got voted into office around the country yesterday, but that's what you get when you don't take other people's opinions into account.

Thursday hate

I couldn't wait until Thursday to pull the trigger on this one while the firestorm of idiocy on both sides of the argument rages almost out of control.

By now, even the most internet-challenged of us have seen the infamous video of the Delaware Senatorial debate where Christine O'Donnell appears not to know what the establishment clause is.

O'Donnell is no dummy, and she knew what she was doing. She was calculating, and she was in fact questioning Coons' knowledge of the 1st Amendment's actual wording.

It's a typical tactic by religious fascists to argue that prayer and Creationism in school isn't prohibited Constitutionally. It's of course incredibly disingenuous because of COURSE the intent is to keep religion and the state separate. What the hell else could you take from that? The proof is in the pudding with their pervasive "Moslem" comments. They'd 'd no sooner support Islamic prayer in a public school than support no prayer at all.

These people always want their cake and to eat it, too. O'Donnell and her supporters are the first to cite the 1st amendment when the government is telling religion what to do. But when religion is being imposed on everyone else - via the government in public schools and policy - crickets. No problem there at all.

Anyways, the term "separation of church and state" actually originated from Jefferson's correspondence with the Danbury Baptists. I just re-learned (I vaguely recall my U.S. History), this myself via Sarah Palin's twitter (linked to the link she posted), ironically because I'm quite certain she didn't intend for that piece of knowledge to passed on.

I don't have a problem with Creationism being taught in public school, as long as it is in a Theology class, i.e. Religious Studies, or within the context of a language curriculum. We studied the Bible as literature in high school, and this is completely constitutional. A teacher instructing, or the government requiring, that it be taught as "truth" is another matter entirely. Further, Creationism is not based on deductive reason. It's totally opposite, so how can it be part of a science curriculum?

I'll grant that the way evolution is taught in most schools could fall under the same criticism. However, since I'm not a botanist, a paleontologist, or a mammalogist, I won't argue how to best instruct evolution by employing the scientific method.

Moving on, the United States Federal Appeals Court just upheld the Illinois "moment of silence" in public schools. There was a time when I would've cried "slippery slope." But who am I to begrudge the available time made for someone to utter some incantation to whatever deity they want? As long as my kid can pull out his Richard Dawkins book at the same time, I think that's fair.

The slippery slope argument is admittedly laziness on our part in place of vigilance on when the line is crossed. The court's ruling seems like pretty reasonable middle ground, making accommodations for everyone. The problem is, religious fascists like O'Donnell try to grab yards and handfuls when offered an equatable inch. Make no mistake, however; she and her ilk will try to cross that line and use these kind wedges to open the door for far more pervasive impositions on our freedoms.

So don't be lazy. Be honest with yourself about where that line really is, and guard it with your life.

Thursday hate

I gotta lot of problems with you people.

First, why the fuck do you draft on complete strangers riding the Lake Front Trail? Is it not immediately obvious to you what a gross invasion of personal space this is? It's the equivalent of reading over someone's shoulder on the train or at a coffee shop. Unless you ask, or introduce yourself...get the fuck off of my wheel.

Next up: riding in the dark, with sunglasses and without lights, weaving through ped and bike traffic at reckless speeds while wearing headphones, without so much as even giving back an, "on your left." I hope to god you only take yourself out with a tree branch or a pothole before injuring anyone else.

Finally, some guest hate. My dad was hit by a car this morning. Same dude who nearly hit him last week while backing out of his driveway, yakking on the phone. Shit caught up with him today:

The guy who hit me was totally freaked out. While I was clawing at his roof, trying to stay on, I could hear him inside on his cell phone, which of course he was on when he pulled out in front of me, "Oh my god I just hit a guy on a bike." I'm yelling back at him how I am going to rip his balls off and stuff them down his throat, etc. Then I slide off the roof still attached to the pedals, fall on my side and lay there yelling for his head. He gets out trying to call 911, he gets them, and I yell they better hurry cuz there is going to be somebody dead here and it won't be me.

I got up realized I was OK, but that the fork was now reversed. But the fucking wheel is true. Go figure huh?

Shop ordered a replacement fork that they think and hope will work but it will be at least Wed. of next week.

When you see this neighborhood you will understand how dangerous it is to back out of driveways. Everybody knows this and most back IN, then pull out forward, but still. It could have been the prego woman who walks her dog, then where would this knot-shit be?

Thursday Hate: Slim Sarah (Guess Who's Back?)

She's going to Iowa.

And a growing legion of creationist-"science"-in-our-high-school-labs-forcing, Walmart-grocery-shopping, Elizabeth Hasselbeck-wannabe moms with MMA-watching, Monster-Energy-Drink-for-breakfast, fat-man-titty-having, juggalo ("fucking MAGNETS! How do they work?!") teen kids will be voting for her.

Happy Halloween.

Obama Un-mosqued

President Obama could have turned this entire Ground-Zero-Mosque issue right back into his critics faces with a smart, snappy reply, foregoing any emotion, gravitas, or grandstanding on First Amendment rights. With one quick and cutting retort, depantsed all of the frothing fanatics who still think he's a Muslim Manchurian Candidate biding his time and setting up the dominoes before springing Sharia law on all of us.

And given the vast middle ground of all of us the strong leadership we deserve.

"What do they want me to do? Say they can't build it? Maybe these Tea Party assholes, with their expert and infinite knowledge of the United States Constitution, could show me where in that great document I have the power to intervene in legally-established private property rights; especially when based on symbolic, emotional, and religious issues?

"Now, I'm sorry, but I've got far more pressing issues to deal with. Issues, such as getting this country motivated to work again, instead of commenting on Peggy Noonan columns all day long about how I'm a foreign-born, communist-Muslim, in all-caps, with really bad spelling and grammar..."

But, no, he equivocated. Again. Compromising his authority, by backtracking on his statements; statements that made it seem as though he was trying to find some sort of authority on this issue where none existed at all. Lowering his position by waiting too long to address and relieve the building tension.

Which ironically brings me to say that the developers of the ground zero mosque should have known better, and exercised a bit more common sense. They should have known that their chosen location would've brought heat down on them, and placed the very leaders who they count on to further their interests in the position of defending them.

This is where a true leader would've flippantly uttered the words above, pshawing and shooing reporters away, disarming his enemies and showing them what hypocrites they really are. Obama has stepped right into the snare, however, and will be fighting to get out all the way until Election Day.

Prediction: Hillary Clinton will run for and win the Democratic nomination for President in 2012. And the first words out of her mouth as she begins her acceptance speech will be:

"I told you so."

Hump Day

Your bat-shit-tea-partier-of-the-day.

Thursday Hate: I'm back, don't talk to me, I'm gone

I'm back.

It's been a crazy month. A move to Edgewater, two family reunions, my sister coming in from North Carolina for Pitchfork, and finally a week of racing in Wisconsin has really derailed my creativity and posting in this space. I promise to give the obligatory, "what's been going on post" tomorrow, but really it's more than that, I'll come back to it later.

First, some long overdue hate:

Why do complete strangers at work feel the need to give me a creepy and hearty, "good morning!" or "hey there!" as I pass them in the hall? My company is over 4,000 employees. And it's like a huge cult. I've never seen that person before in my life, and I likely won't ever see them again. Eyes front and keep walking, dude. I don't want any of your KoolAid.

If it makes me a grump than so be it. I don't know these people. If it were within my department and it was my first day or with a new person, that's completely different. Your pathological need to reach out and give every single person who comes near you a smile scares me. Because something tells that if I got to know you, it would go way beyond a smile.

Moving on.

I deactivated my facebook account today. I think I must have a problem, I spent way too much time on that site. Or other people think I do. At least that's what a little bird told me. "Little" bird. Heh heh heh.

Fuck those people, but they're right in a way. It's a sign, and I should pay attention to it. Hearing it really hurt my feelings, and that right there told me I needed to step away, way back. It's not like I was some redneck Farmville addict, or constantly begging them for Mafia Wars favors. I thought my postings were funny and smart. I just want to share what makes me think and laugh. Oh, well. It's not permanent, so at least I can always go back and just get the thousands of pictures.

But what a complete time suck. I haven't posted here at The Car Whisperer for a month. I feel Facebook has robbed my critical thinking skills, my creativity, my edge. When was the last time I posted some poetry? Or an anti-societal, car-culture rant?

It's was about time for some catharsis. Consider it my wake up call.

Next up, what I've been doing with myself the last month, and a preview of August 29th, 2010. The greatest day in the history of Chicago bicycling.

Thursday hate: Tony Kornheiser

Wow. Just...wow. Firstly, Bob Roll has this to say:



To think I used to like Tony Kornheiser. I thought he was pretty funny in an annoying kind of way. But it turns out, he's just another fat, lazy, rage-aholic prick with an oversize sense self-entitlement to match his SUV. I can't say anything new about people like him, other than that they are sad, pathetic, misguided human beings. I hope Tony wakes up tomorrow to see the dismay he's caused by his comments and issues an apology.

Lance Armstrong was once defended by Kornheiser on doping allegations. According to Mellow Johnny's (Lance Armstrong's Austin bike shop) twitter page, you can email Kornheiser's boss by clicking here.

You know what to do.

(UPDATED): @lancearmstrong has just weighed in to his more than two million followers. Welcome to Twitter, Tony Kornheiser.

(UPDATED 8:57am) 1-888-549-3776 is the customer care line at ESPN. Select option 3 to speak to a rep and register your complaint.

Hero of the week: Randy Michaels

I was prepared to declare Tribune CEO Randy Michaels Asshole of the Week for issuing a memo proclaiming nearly 120 words banned from WGN broadcasts. "Newsspeak," he calls them, and, besides the word, "alleged" (unless you want your already-bankrupt company to be further sued into oblivion for defamation and libel), I am actually in favor of leaving nearly all of these words and phrases out back for the low-lifes of cable news commentary to pick through.

Seeing "touch base" immediately upon opening the article got my attention.

My favorite is "in the wake of (unless referring to a boat)".

Thursday Hate: SoTU edition

Sam Alito. Did you notice how every other one of your colleagues remained stone-faced by Obama's typical and completely expected condemnation of the campaign finance decision handed down by the Supreme Court last week? It's called "restraint." As a "conservative," you should probably look it up.

In the camera shot for Bob McDonnell's Republican response was a "rainbow of diversity," as Brian Williams called it after. Four people flanking the Virginia governor: two men, two women, including a black and an Asian. I would've loved to have been there for the pre-pro. "No, no, no...can we make the women diagonal in the camera?"

McCain's crabby sniping. We could all read your lips. "Blaming Bush...blaming Bush." Yeah, after only a year in office following probably the worst president in history, I think he still has carte blanche on that angle. Deal with it. It was certainly the foundation of your 2004 campaign, and you weren't exactly begging Bush for an endorsement in 2008, either.

But the biggest stinker of the night was Obama shouting the populist line, "Jobs are our number one priority!" Then why have you been wasting almost an entire year on healthcare "reform", with virtually no action on trying to get Americans actually healthier? Michelle's lip service to childhood obesity isn't going to do squat when former McDonald's and Kraft CEOs are running the Department of Agriculture. If we don't get healthier, demand on the system will not decrease. That is what is broken with healthcare. Fix that, and then maybe we can afford to insure the entire country. Anything less amounts to enabling our destructive lifestyle.

Hump Day

Lookin' like 1994 around here today. And if the Democrats keep it up through the summer we'll definitely be traveling back in time.

I'm not surprised in the least by Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. To all of you that are shocked and maybe depressed about it: what did you think would be the reaction to the extremely partisan healthcare debate going on in Congress right now? Guess what? There's more coming this fall. This is what happens when you ram through legislation and mistake a landslide electoral victory for a mandate when the popular vote was still razor thin.

Obama's and the Congress' monumental sin was asking a yes or no question on "change" and not bothering to clarify "what" or "why."

Not that I care in the least. Neither party has ever learned that lesson, nor will they ever. I don't understand the emotional see-sawing of people from election to election. It's beyond annoying to have to deal with people's gloating or moaning after elections. The electorate is largely nothing but a flock of sheep staring at the greener grass on the other side of the fence every four years.

What happened after Newt Gingrich's 1994 coronation as the leader of the GOP and their sanctimonious "Contract With America"? Bill Clinton destroyed Bob Dole in the 1996 election and went on to become one of the most popular presidents of all time. Then, of course, in 2000 George W. Bush was going to save us from Democratic excess, in 2006 and 2008 the Congress and Obama were going to save us from Republican excess...[making jerk off motions]and now it's again come full circle [/making jerk-off motions].

I for one, am glad about Scott Brown's election, for two reasons:

First, it will put the brakes on the partisan healthcare reform now being crafted in Congress, the very existence of which is fomenting such dissent in the famously dark blue state. Not one goddamn word is being said about getting Americans healthier. About throwing out the leaders and powerful influence of "food" corporations from the Department of Agriculture and our national food policy. Without concrete actions to get Americans actually healthier, the demand on the system will not abate, and neither will costs. Therefore any attempt to "reform" it is only further turning it into a disease-management system perpetuating our chronic ailments and obesity and making as much profit as possible on that misery.

It's called Capitalism, people - on both sides of the equation. Meanwhile the US government continues to subsidize the industrial overproduction of food - primarily corn and soybeans - to the tune of more than 3,500 calories per American per day. And the marketing and lobbying efforts of the above mentioned companies are making sure those extra calories are purchased and consumed.

Second, this guy might just catch lightening in a bottle like Sarah Palin did just over a year ago, and hopefully has the brains to actually do something with it; not to mention distract the sheep from that other dumbass. While I really do feel the US President is not much more than a figurehead at which the sheep's' anger is redirected whenever necessary, if this country is going to have a Republican president, we could not do worse than Sarah Palin.

Thursday hate

Brian and Erik ride to work:

• Part 1
• Part 2

----------

Christmas trees in November.

By time the big day rolls around how can you still stand to look at the damn thing?! I think even Thanksgiving weekend is too early to be putting up lights and tinsel and shit. And these assholes in my neighborhood are putting them up while their fucking pumpkins are still rotting on their porch!

Enjoy Fall, for God's sake. Get out and shoot a deer, play some football. Fry up that walleye that's been in the freezer. Watch 25 football games in a row, and drink a case of beer. There's plenty of time for cookies and cake and cocktails in December.

When I was a kid, we didn't put up the Christmas tree until the night of the last day of school before holiday break. We had an old artificial tree from the '60s that we'd put up, and then drag a box of ornaments up from the basement that was as big as me. We'd order Pizza Hut and spend the night decorating it and listening to Bing Crosby sing-a-long LPs.

And if you think that's waiting too long? My mom's family didn't put up the tree until Christmas Eve night. Bare. It was decorated, and had presents under it, when they woke up. Now that's making the day special.

Picture of the day

(With apologies to Newt...)

"Whoa...hey guys...um...I think I'll take the stairs..."


(from Red Kite Prayer)

Paging Dr. Thompson...

Guilty.

Are Limbaugh and Sharpton having cocktails together right now?

I may be the last person to have figured this out...

But Rush Limbaugh never wanted to buy an NFL team. Rush Limbaugh wants people to talk about him.

"Selectively leaked?"


Uh huh.

This is all part of Premiere Radio Network's strategy to raise the advertising rates on his show.

Rush isn't a racist. He's a blowhard. And a smart one at that. He makes money when people are pissed off at him. And so do the people who are "pissed off" at him, supposedly. But how can they really be pissed off at him when they're getting such great stage time being pissed off at him...

Rush isn't a racist, he's an ego maniac. Just like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, speaking of whom. The NFL wouldn't want either one of those two guys as owners either.

Rush isn't a racist, he's just an asshole. And the NFL certainly has enough of those, too.

Olympic-sized hypocracy

I was not a fan of the Olympics coming to Chicago.

Firstly, I believed it was a waste of time to try and beat the odds of a foregone conclusion that the IOC would remedy the fact that the Games had never been hosted in South America. The Olympics have been hosted in North America - including the Winter Games - seven times in the last 40 years. And they're back again for Vancouver in 2010.

Secondly, they have devolved into nothing more than a two week party for the rich at the expense of the poor and working class, those who can't afford even a $15 "Chicago-style" hot dog sold at Olympic Stadium, much less a ticket to the venue itself, those who would be most adversely affected by construction - either by outright displacement or the disruption of the city services and infrastructure they use every day.

I'm not against the spectacle of the universal drama in human endeavor the Games bring, of course, please don't confuse the vessel for the content. I have friends who competed in Beijing, and will do so again in London in 3 years. I just don't think it is right for Chicago now, and in fact, many things need to be fixed to bring the Games' mission back on track with the projected athletic ideal.

Do you think Rio de Janeiro is any less crime-ridden than Chicago? Any less corrupt? Does that city have its infrastructural, educational, and social priorities in order to be able to justify the $4 billion it plans to spend on the 2016 Olympic Games?

Matt Drudge apparently thinks so.

By reading his spin-zone page in the past two weeks, you'd have thought Chicago was the murder capital of the world, that Barak Obama and Mayor Daley made Third World dictators look like Eisenhower in comparison, and that Rio had solved universal healthcare and hunger, while Chicago's children ran thought the streets naked with swine flu, killing each with two by fours and automatic weapons.

For those of you not familiar with Drudge, he is merely a very biased right wing spin-artist who posts cherry picked articles to twist the street's view of the political and social landscape. His links in the weeks prior tried to get you to believe that Obama was misusing his power to selfishly influence the IOC on behalf of his corrupt hometown for his corrupt friends and cronies, such as Mayor Daley and Rod Blagojevitch.

He posted links highlighting Chicago's crime wave and the Mayor's declining approval ratings.

Conversely, pathetically - and hypocritcally - on Friday morning last week he posted a link that spoke of Rio making impassioned pleas as Madrid tugged on the heartstrings of the IOC.

Pardon me while wipe the vomit off my keyboard.

Even this weekend as I related my relief to my family members about the Games not landing here, some of the more conservative ones spoke hautily of Obama's "comeupance." I saw the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol try to make this point in a TV round table as well.

My ass.

Spain sent not only its king and queen but their prime minister as well. And Brazil and Japan sent their heads-of-state, too. If Obama had stayed home, they would've skewered him for not going to Copenhagan to promote Chicago's bid - and the United States. They'd have tried to claim he was appeasing the world with a multilateralist agenda by lessening America's stature in the world.

And now Obama and Daley are trying to shirk the "blame" by laying it on the USOC...

...which is exactly where it belongs. A relationship gone awry, and Daley's own tunnel vision, were what doomed this bid from the start. Start by blaming those two. Don't blame Obama for promoting his own country when he didn't really have a choice not to.

As well, don't blame Chicagoans for not supporting the bid. The city council voted unanimously to place the burden of any cost overruns directly on the tax payers despite the fact they were overwhelmingly against it. 45% may have supported the bid, but 84% didn't want to pay for them with public funds. This is because the city couldn't build a park for less than 4 times the budget, and sold its parking infrastructure for about a quarter of its worth. They know a raw deal when they see one.

Chicago may have it's problems, but it's no Rio, and it's heartening to see priorities still in the right place.

May God bless Brazil.