The Bridge to Sodom

OK, this is where I can get into trouble. I could have called this posting something more politically correct; but chose not to because that would not be expressing my true opinion.

On October 17th, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck northern CA. During this earthquake a section of the double decker Bay Bridge failed and amazingly only one person was killed. The bridge was repaired by November 18th and plans were laid for a new Bay Bridge. Now, I will be the first to admit the majority of the existing Bay Bridge is not visually appealing. It was originally built with one thing in mind - to bring the maximum number of cars across the Bay from Oakland to San Francisco along with trains . It is the extremely ugly sister to the magnificent Golden Gate bridge.

In the late 1990s a Bay Area panel was charged with coming up with a bridge design but the process spun out of control. What was supposed to take six months took 16 as a long line of government agencies and special interest groups weighed in. The Navy complained about shadows cast by a new bridge. Politicians gave conflicting signals about what they wanted. Costumed activists showed up at hearings and broke into song. The new bridge, it was thought, must covey a sense of architectural majesty to not only be functional but also beautiful and went through several design changes. Cost and schedule incentives which were successfully implemented for highway repair projects after the Northridge quake were ignored. In other words, the hounds of liberal bureaucracy were turned loose.

In 1997, then-Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation funding a new east span. The structure was expected to open by 2004 and cost $1.3 billion. Complications set in, causing delays and pushing up the price tag. Steel prices ballooned. Insurance and bonding costs increased after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For a while, the Navy refused to allow Caltrans on Yerba Buena Island to conduct tests. By 2001, Caltrans and its financial consultants estimated the bridge would cost $2.6 billion. In 2005, the estimate swelled to $5.1 billion and present estimates are over $12 billion with a completion date of 2013. The sad thing is the new bridge will have the same capacity for automobiles as the old bridge.

When I came to the Bay area in 1995 bridge tolls were $1.00 and you could buy a book a bridge tickets at the supermarket reducing your cost to $.85 a day. A $1 seismic retrofit surcharge was added in 1998 by the state legislature, originally for eight years, but since then extended to December 2037. On March 2, 2004, voters approved Regional Measure 2, raising the toll by another dollar to a total of $3. Presently the toll is $4.00 a day and the Bay Area Toll Authority have recently stated that tolls need to be increased to $6.00 to pay for retrofits on the San Rafael and the tiny Antioch toll bridges. Based on the information above the reason for the latest toll increase appears to be a lie.

Several months ago when a support clamp failed on the Bridge, the Bridge was closed for several days and the commute was thrown into chaos. One Bay Area ferry announced that its morning ridership increased by over 700%. The sad thing is that the number of commuters was only 70, not the 10 who usually rode the boat. The local political process is completely controlled by liberal Democrats who actually think that spreading the wealth is a great thing and that you, as an evil owner of an internal combustion vehicle, need to pay for mass transit for all.

I utilize two toll bridges regularly, both of which cross the Sacramento river as part of an Interstate highway. The Bay Bridge is actually considered to be part of Interstate 80. Now the main reason for an Interstate highway is not automobile transport but for the rapid deployment of the US armed forces. But the sad reality is a lot of CA and the rest of the USA actually despises the San Francisco Bay Area due to its liberal leanings and is unwilling to pick up the tab for the bridge tolls. The Bay Area Bridge project is a poster child for what happens when liberals are given complete and absolute control and should serve as a warning to the rest of the US.

You may think that narrow minded; but the home of the leather festival ( see billboard picture above), the church of Satan, and the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a board of supervisors that has openly condemned and stated that several religious organizations including the Catholic Church is unwelcome in the city is deserving of prejudice.

To be fair San Francisco has great restaurants , theater, museums tourist attractions and is a center of commerce.

It is a great city just like Sodom.

A Voice In the Wilderness
PS -If the California GOP was not so stupid they would realize just how much the middle class in the Bay Area hates bridge tolls and would seek to have them eliminated and bring into play elections they never dreamed possible.

I used several sources for this article including Wikipedia, SF Gate, and the San Diego Tribune and a couple I may have forgot

Be Carefull What You Wish For

This past week the US Supreme Court struck down the McCain/Fiengold campaign finance laws. The end result being that corporations and unions will now have a free rein in campaign and political issues advertising. No longer will you have to hear the words "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message".

The court case stemmed from a documentary film concerning then Presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton. The movie was banned from being shown in theaters as it was "political advertising" albeit negative toward Hillary. Many conservatives are viewing this court decision as a victory for free speech and have been wishing for some time that the campaign finance laws would be overturned.

In the 1950's President Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense Charlie Wilson made the statement: "What is good for General Motors is good for America...". Moving in our magic time machine, as I love to do, to the present - just how does this statement translate to the mega corporations of the 21st century and their new ability to advertise for political causes?

You see, I am not so sure that what is good for Microsoft is always good for America and I am pretty darned sure that's what's good for Wal-mart is not good for America. If I were a betting person I would sure bet that those two corporations will have a bigger hand in the political process in the future than they already do now ; also be prepared for campaign adds from the SEIU and George Soros' MoveOn.org organization.

As the 2010 elections near we all should be prepared for our television viewing to be filled with political commercials containing all the glamor and glitz of a Ron Popeil rotisserie marathon proclaiming the best candidates money can buy.

Be careful what you wish for. It might just come true. Thank goodness I have a TIVO.

A Voice In the Wilderness

A Great Victory for the Rebellion!!!

A New Hope!!

The words ring truer tonight than any time recently. A rag-tag group of Tea Party Patriots has destroyed the sacred battlestar of Camelot. We must remember, however, that the Emperor is still in power ( even though most of us now see he has no clothes ) and will not give up easily. The evil Darth Pelosi, whose body parts are held together with plastic surgery, will seek to hunt us down.
I must state that if anything that goes wrong in this country before Nov. 2010, it will be blamed on the rebellion. In the words of that great American patriot John Paul Jones "We have not yet begun to Fight."

Remember, we are the good guys and we always win in the end. As for tonight I feel like a Wookie hopped up on Red Bull.





I wrote this Friday night in anticipation of the election of Scott Brown

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Playing Paul Revere

I had an amazing occurrence last week. I obtained a piece of breaking news and transmitted it nationally before any big media did.

Recently, I have recently followed the US Senate special election in Massachusetts with rapt attention. In 2004, when John Kerry ran for President, the Governor of Mass. was Republican Mitt Romney. The late Ted Kennedy feared that Romney would appoint a Republican to take over Kerry's Senate seat and influenced the state legislature to change the law so that a special election would be required should Kerry be elected. Fast forward to 2009 and Kennedy is dying of cancer. The rules were again changed and after Kennedy died the sitting Democrat governor appointed a Democrat caretaker to the Senate seat.

A special election was set for 1-19-10 and the winner of the Democratic primary candidate, state attorney-general Martha Copley, was all but given the keys to the Senate office in Washington . But pride goeth before the fall and it seems that Ms. Copley felt no need to campaign in December with the holidays and all plus a 30-point lead in the polls. The GOP candidate State Senator and former Cosmopolitan magazine centerfold Scott Brown had not read the script that he was supposed to lose and campaigned hard.

The poll numbers increased for Scott and a low hum started on Facebook. When Brown got within 9 percentage points in the polls, the hum turned into a steady buzz and I felt the need to carry the message. The election of Mr. Brown would completely change the existing political paradigm in Washington and I felt that was intriguing.

But what could I do? I live over 3,000 miles away in the Peoples' Republic of California. The first thing I did was pull out my wallet and contribute $25. Yes, I am that typical fat cat GOP donor they have been warning you about. I then proceeded to post the link to his website on the numerous conservative pages I contribute to.

As my curiosity increased I became a fan of Scott Brown on Facebook last Friday night and about 8 PM Pacific Time I saw a Facebook posting "PIP poll shows Scott Brown in lead " I did a web search and found the Poll data on the poll website but could find no news sites covering this.
At that time I again posted the news concerning the polls to the conservative sites. On Saturday afternoon one of the big political bloggers, Michelle Malkin, finally posted the story followed by Fox News late Sunday, and eventually as the lead story on the Newsmax site Monday morning.

To an extent, I have felt like a modern Paul Revere spreading news of hope to Patriots far and wide. I have been joined by many others spreading the word over the past few days On Monday the Brown campaign raised 1.3 million dollars in 24 hours. You may ask "why didn't you post the news item on your blog last Friday night and take credit?" For one reason - it was more important to post the links unfiltered and unfettered by my blog package to as many people as possible. The other reason is that this blog is not a news site. It's an opinion site and a journal of my experiences. Who wins next week is anyone's guess and will be one for the history books. As for those of us who spread the message the following may be apt:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year

Till the next time: A voice in the wilderness

The State of the BLOG Address

This is my first annual state of the BLOG address. I welcome you to this auspicious occasion. Please note that a tux or evening gown will not be required. I would express that dress for this event is Wal-mart formal. This means you men need to put on a shirt and women please no fuzzy bunny slippers.

• Starting the BLOG: I started this BLOG as a vehicle to express my ideas, albeit some of them harebrained, to the masses. I had written letters to editor on a regular basis but it seemed I could only get them posted in my town's local newspaper. My local paper is so desperate for printing material that they would publish a letter on hair styling tips from Kim Jung Il

• Followers: Upon publishing my second blog posting, I noticed that my blog had obtained a follower. For a little bit I found this to be quite disconcerting. Just what is a follower? Would my followers be gathering around a shrub in my backyard in orange snuggies ? Did I need to start living a better life? Followers... that seems like a commitment and it is. Of the thousands of Blogs and websites to read online three people have signed up so far to be followers of my Blog. I am grateful for their support.
  

• Mommy and Daddy How is my Blog?: After I did my first few postings I sought opinion and comments on my Blog from people who make their living giving opinions, talk show radio hosts. I sent my blog to several of them on both a national and local level and all I could hear was the chirping of crickets. I am sure that some of them may actually be extremely busy. I also believe receiving an email with the link Barbarians Near the Gate could be akin to receiving a male enhancement Enzite email from Bob. . I also sent a few of my postings to large conservative websites as letters to the editor. Those sites seemed to publish a lot of letters that read like " Death panels , communists , arrggh!!" but none of mine.

• Facebook gateway to friends: Facebook is a phenomenon and to an extent I would say I am addicted. I really do care when my friends kids are home from college or seeing the pictures posted from my niece's birthday parties for her kids. I post my Blogs, and my friends God bless them get them. One thing though I have found out is that many of my friends are busy and read my Blog sometimes or not at all . I have also found out that many of them are a lot more interested in taking surveys like " Which Old Testament plague are you?" I also get a lot of postings such as "You have received the gift of a fruit bat". There is nothing wrong with this as Its just part of being on Facebook and having fun is part of the experience.
  

• Facebook gateway to the masses: I joined several political celebrities Facebook pages when I saw that they had membership in the hundreds of thousands. Lots of useful information is posted on these sites. Unfortunately, lots of stupid people post there with the most idiotic postings - being from the extreme left and right of the political spectrum. I really don't care if you think University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow would be a good husband for Sarah Palin's daughter or if you believe the Reptilians are controlling the world under the direction of Dick Cheney. ( OK I will admit Cheney may be cold blooded)I added a site visitor counter to my Blog after several postings and to my surprise I was only getting about 100 hits a week on my site and not the thousands I thought. Ehhh , In the words of the late Fred Rodgers "Boys and girls can you say reality check? Sure, I knew you could."
  

• Blog envy: After I came to the reality that 10s of thousands were not waiting on my next next blog posting with the excitement of a child on a Dicken's Christmas morn, I asked myself what could I do to get my readership up? When you do a Blog you tend to read Blogs done on a professional basis. The sites are slick with great graphics, links and ooh yes advertising . What could I possible do to compete with them? Could I add an application with a chorus line of cockatoos doing the can can? I even thought about buying myself a horned Viking helmet and reading my blog as The Barbarian on Utube . I might have gained 15 minutes of fame but I would have lost my self respect and yours. Some of the scariest U tube videos I have seen are angry white men ranting in a dark room. Not a club I want to join and not an audience I want.
  

• Being a Blog slut: Nothing naughty here. But if you are only mining 10 to 25 hits every time you post on a Facebook site how do you get more readers? It's simple! You post again and again on various pages - in effect throwing yourself at the site members like a floozy. I did this recently with my Christmas post. I did this partly as an experiment to see how just many hits my site could get in a week ( About 600) and posting the story of the birth of Christ over and over and over was fun for me to do. It looks like the henious activity of talking about the birth of Jesus has gotten me banned from the Sarah Palin site. I guess I won't be invited to the Tebow/Palin wedding.
  

• The future of the blog: I work 60 hours a week as a construction manager. I do volunteer work at church with kids and I BBQ chicken for the homeless most every Saturday at 3:00 AM. I also have a lovely wife and daughter who command my attention. That means they glare at me when I spend too much time on this blog. My wife has a degree in English and she edits my writing and grammar. ( She actually believes that commas are required and never leaves my participles dangling. )Let me say this: I really enjoy writing this blog but it's not my life. I will try to do regular postings but I am not going to blog for the sake of blogging. I expect to be involved in the Tea Party movement in 2010 and many of my postings will journal that experience. I know that God gave me the gift of communication which includes the ability able to read between the lines while connecting the dots on current events while providing unique historical perspectives. I promise you my insight and my wit and nothing more.
  

Hoping you will enjoy my Blog in the year of of Lord 2010

A Voice In the Wilderness

PS: Please check out the chorus line picture and the dancing cockatoo videos