At Least You Can't Swim in L.A. Air
(OH OH--- LA, CA messing with Texas!-some humor)
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!
Posted on 09/12/2004 3:09:07 PM PDT by Mark
At least you can't swim in L.A. air
By Kimit Muston
I was shocked -- shocked -- to learn that Los Angeles now officially has the worst traffic congestion in the United States. Thank goodness somebody finally did a scientific study to uncover this little-known facet of life in Southern California. You can read the details yourself online at obvious-as-hell.com.
According to the Texas Transportation Institute, which for some reason felt compelled to do this study of traffic congestion in lots of cities outside of Texas, our little pueblo is now the worst traffic mess in world history. Previously, the worst congestion on record occurred in ancient Rome right after a double-header in the Coliseum (Christians v. Lions.). The lion supporters always showed up in force, but after the second game -- Lions shut the Christians out, 42 to zip -- there was such a chariot jam on the Apian Way that one poor guy, Flabeus Lateus, didn't get home until the Middle Ages.
But now, according to the Texas Transportation Institute, Southern California is the new congestion capital of all time. Which leaves us with something we can brag about at the oxygen bar, I guess. The average commuter in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego counties wastes 93 hours a year stuck in traffic, according to these Texans, and that's supposed to be a world record. It certainly makes life in L.A. sound terrible.
But I did a little study of my own. And after hours of intricate and detailed calculations, I discovered there are approximately 365 days in most years. Subtract weekends (104 days) and holidays (eight days), and it turns out we commute to work only 253 days a year. No wonder our economy is in such trouble! Anyway, divide 93 hours by 253 days, and it turns out we only waste about 15 minutes a day in gridlock. Now that doesn't sound so bad, does it? Just 7 minutes each way.
And what do these Texans mean by "waste," anyway?
Look, at least we're not commuting to and from Houston. That entire trip is a waste. This is L.A., Baby. Parked bumper to bumper on the Sepulveda grade with our air conditioners blowing full blast, our satellite radios blaring and all 16 cylinders of our leased Ferraris revving to the red limit and gobbling a gallon of gas every eight seconds, we are not wasting anything. Not when you look this good. Listen up: A Volkswagen bug slip-streaming behind a mass transit bus down East 19th street in Austin, Texas, is a bigger waste of gasoline than Maria Shriver stop-and-going Arnold's Humvee to Ralphs to pick up hair spray.
Why are we trusting a study from Texans? They've never liked us. Basically, Texas is populated by people who got lost looking for California. And thank goodness they did, too. Have you any idea what California would look like if all those rodeo rejects had figured out which way was west? Orange County, that's what.
Worse -- Orange County with high humidity. Humid? The word fails to even begin to describe the climatological status of Texas. "Moist" would be a better word. "Oozy" would be more accurate. On an average summer afternoon with not a cloud in the sky, Texas has more water floating around in the air than in the Rio Grande. It would rain a lot more often in Texas if the raindrops could just get through all that humidity.
All that airborne moisture supports insect populations of unimaginable size and weight. One night in San Antonio I got jumped by four mosquitoes. I escaped with my life, but they got my wallet. And they drove off in my car. When the cops finally returned it, not only was the gas tank empty, but there were eight empty six packs of Raid in the back seat. We're talking mean mosquitoes. We don't have mosquitoes like that in California. We have condors, but they're smaller.
According to the Texas study, people in Dallas and Fort Worth "waste" only 61 hours a year in traffic jams, or about one-third less time than they claim we Californians waste in traffic. But there is productive "wasted" time and then there is wasted wasted time. Those 10 minutes Texans waste each day are 10 minutes that could be spent getting on a plane and getting out of Texas. And that is a true waste of time.
Kimit Muston lives in the San Fernando Valley and is a regular contributor to the Daily News. Write to him by e-mail at KAMuston@hotmail.com .
Re: Comment #40 Removed by Moderator
See comment #42 by Leapfrog...
Lest we forget, let's all please have another look at a part of CAPTAIN PHOTON'S rant;
-=-=-
CAPTAIN PHOTON --
"the worst American president texas ever spawned"
Leapfrog --
You DUmmies really are easy to spot.
Technically speaking though, he was a Kentuckian. I wouldn't call him a loser though. It's been said that Hood rose and fell with the confederacy. His success peaked with its successes, and when things turned bad so did his ability. One of the theories is that Hood's mounting injuries and amputations got him addicted to opiates and other painkillers, which impaired his judgment.
Yes, Texas was never subdued like the rest of the south, but that's because the war was fought and won in the midwest and the east.
You are incorrect about that. The main thrust of the war we know about, to be sure, was fought in the east. But that does not mean that Texas was ignored and far from it. The federals launched several very large expeditions in an effort to take the state. They all ended in disaster and none penetrated more than a few miles beyond the border (the largest one didn't even breach it), so we never hear about any of them.
The Sabine Pass expedition was the most famous in its day (1863) because of the bizarre lopsidedness of the battle. Lincoln ordered the command out of New Orleans to mount a large invasion force to land near Beaumont and take the state. They packed about 20,000 men onto ships and sent them on a massive flotilla to land on the Sabine River. There was a tiny confederate fort there with about 45 men in it and a few cannons, but they were highly trained artillerists who had good accuracy. The first wave of ships with about 5,000 on board and several warship accompaniments entered the channel and began shelling the fort. The gunners waited though until the ships were in range, opened fire, and scored a succession of direct hits on all the ships in the channel. They captured the leader and the remainder, plus all of the following transports, high tailed it back to Louisiana.
The next expedition was about a year later when they tried to invade by land along the Red River. This was the biggest invasion force and, all told, was to have about 50,000 men devoted to it making it as big as any sizable army in the war save a few of the super-armies that did combat in the eastern theater at places like Richmond and Gettysburg. The Red River expedition was also given the largest fleet of inland warships assembled in any one place of the war - more than Vicksburg and the mississippi river battles even. They sailed over 40 gunboats, ironclads, monitors, and other warships up the Red River to invade the state. The campaign collapsed before reaching the Texas border though after confederates routed the yankees to the west of Shreveport. All things considered, Texas did quite well in holding its own during the war with the north throwing all sorts of stuff in their direction over and over and over again. The only reason you never hear about it is the fact that virtually all of the invasion campaigns collapsed very early on and without establishing much of any foothold inside the border. One of them succeeded in temporarily taking Galveston on the coast. But they were easily pushed back out to sea a few weeks later and, in the case of one of the union ships, right into the guns of the Alabama.
CAPTAIN PHOTON:
I haven't gotten to the whole "burn in hell" bit yet. Ready?
Remember post #40?
Oh, I'm sorry...you're not only dumb as cement...you're crazy too!
and I'd be crazy to waste anymore time arguing with cement.
Please leap away...I lost track of the thread and I really don't want to waste more time on bad garbage.
Very well.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
If indeed you cannot remember your insane rant to me, then I have two theories as to why;
1. You are schizophrenic.
2. Someone else has access to your account.
I hope the second option is true and that you will change your passwd.
At Least You Can't Swim in L.A. Air
(OH OH--- LA, CA messing with Texas!-some humor)
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!
Thats pretty good.
When I lived in Spokane, Washington, folks used to be nice. What happened?
He's right!!
What about the TX General Henry Sibley? Didn't he fight the Union in NM Territory? Was Sibley from Louisiana, however? There are two towns of Sibley, LA.
TX Governor Edmund Davis, who held office as a Radical Republican from 1870-74, was also a Floridian and a Union officer in the war. His legacy: no Republican would hold the TX governorship again for 105 years.
Well....Spokane is still full of nice people.
And I used to be a fairly pleasant individual.
But I've lived and worked in downtown Seattle since '91.....I'm surrounded and hounded by liberal twits 24 hours a day and now - on a scale of Giddy to Livid - there isn't enough Prozac on the planet to keep me below "Ornery".
haha! :^)
I can imagine. I'd hate living in Liberal LaLa Land.Would you believe that this year I can recall seeing only TWO Kerry bumper stickers? Just two. One was about 3-4 months ago. The second just a week ago. I pulled up almost beside him/her but couldn't quite get up far enough to flash them the three finger "W" sign. They were in the middle lane and I was turning right, so I missed out. Oh, well, maybe next time - if there is a next time before November 2nd.
I love being in the heart of the real America, the heartland of Conservatism. I hate Kerry and the Libs.
NOT SO MUCH A LEGACY, JUST A REFLECTION THAT THE NORTH WAS REPUBLICAN AND HAD WON THE WAR. From 1877 until 1964, the country was mostly run by an alliance of Northern republican business interests and Southern conservative Democrats. Until race became an issue and LBJ, the absolutely worst president of all time, AND A TEXAN! came along and toppled the apple cart. He was responsible for much deviltry, but IMHO, his 1965 immigration reform act, sponsered by the vile TED and Bobby K, and Emmanuel Celluar of NY ( a disgusting Rockefeller republican who seemed to be dead long before he died) was the worst piece of legislation in this century. The changing demographics of the country, and the problems on the southern border, are directly attributable to this malicious legislation.
Good Gawd, I thought us Kermit boys were the only ones who chased the DDT truck. My best friend got tagged by a car crossing behind the truck as we chased it on our bikes. It was a real heart wrenching decision to stop and help him. He had a little road rash but it was nothing compared to the woopin we got from our dads when we got home.
Of course we were also the geniuses who shot out the mercury vapor street lights and let them drip on our heads and in our mouths, and chewed on lead shot when we were trap shooting and dove hunting too.
It'll be a miracle if I make it to 50 but it won't be any of those things that kills me. The double-ended candle syndrome will surely get me first.
We never chased the DDT truck on our bikes because it was too much fun to run/walk behind it. The truck that sprayed our neighborhood didn't go fast enough to ride our bikes behind it, we would have outrun it. Heck, our parents knew what we were doing since our truck had a regular schedule and there would be times the parents would be outside watching us play. No one ever gave the fact the truck was spewing poison a thought.
We were the geniuses that would take our bb guns around the neighborhood and pop almost anything that moved. Dogs and cats were off limit since there weren't any strays and they all were our pets. People were fair game though. No one ever lost an eye or had any injury more serious than a small welt where the bb had hit.
Guess we were just lucky! Don't count on dying before age 50. I burned both ends of the candle up until 4 years ago and I'm 52. I started to say I wish I'd known I was going to live this long because I'd have taken better care of myself but my last check-up was all good. The worst thing I have to worry about is low blood pressure.
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