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Posts Tagged → traffic

Today’s Public Service Announcement: Headlights

Pennsylvania law and common sense require headlights to be ON when the car’s windshield wipers are working.  This is not so the driver of the car in question can see better, but rather so other drivers can see the car more easily.  Seeing the car more easily means safer driving conditions, fewer accidents.

While we are on the subject of highway safety, another reminder is in order: Left lanes are for passing, not cruising.

Pennsylvania law (gees, what’s with all these laws?!  Other states have the same law, too) requires motorists to get out of the Left Lane (AKA Passing Lane) as soon as possible, as soon as they have passed the vehicle(s) in the right lane.  Few acts create road rage faster than a driver determined to camp out in the Passing Lane, thereby keeping faster traffic bottled up behind them.  Drivers do not play the role of traffic cop; it is not the role of drivers to slow down other drivers they think are driving too fast.  That just leads to conflict.

You call that a scandal? I’ll show you a scandal

New Jersey governor Chris Christie is rightly under fire for shutting down eastbound traffic lanes across the George Washington Bridge into NYC.

Emails, texts, and other sources used by Christie’s senior staff paint an unflattering picture of a guy using every means possible to punish politicians, and citizens, who don’t do what he wants. Like endorse him for reelection. It’s criminal behavior on its face and also because at least one person died due to traffic backups and slow ambulance service.

Amazing now how the American media is buzzing with this scandal, but the deadly Benghazi scandal (abandonment of US personnel and subsequent coverup of their cruel deaths) and the criminal IRS political scandal (destruction of elementary Constitutional principles in government behavior) are nearly off the media’s radar. Where’s the buzz about these huge scandals? Where are the public demands for justice, the mocking, the sneers, the tongue-clucking among network news anchors that they now employ against Christie?

On one hand, we have a scandal about traffic. On the other hand, we have multiple scandals about earth-shaking abuse of power, criminal negligence, undermining of the Constitution that holds America together and guarantees citizen rights. It’s impossible to justify reporting on the bridge, but not on Benghazi, IRS, US Dept. of Justice malfeasance, etc.

I regularly listen to NPR radio, and this double standard was especially strong there, as would be expected.

This double standard, or political activism masquerading as journalism, is just one more example of how the national media have abandoned their watchdog role and are now partisan cheerleaders.

According to the establishment media, Obama can’t do anything wrong; Republicans can’t do anything right. It’s shameful and all the more reason for new, additional fair and balanced news outlets. It’s why citizen reporters are the real journalists.