Watching the city council meeting a few minutes ago, I found Evelyn Terry’s comment that Winston-Salem’s new stadium will somehow bring nothing less than total “social justice” to Winston-Salem very interesting.

And by “interesting,” I mean “idiotic.”

Also amusing were Dan Besse’s line of questioning — essentially nothing but a pointed attempt to have the city manager restate “for the record” all the very comforting assurances he’d just made in his report about how no tax money would be involved, how backing out would ultimately be “more expensive”, etc. — and Vivian Burke’s self-righteous scolding of all dissenters for “speaking negatively.” It was lovely the way they all managed to congratulate themsleves for their handling of the issue, though.

Of course, the bailout passed unanimously. As the mayor, entire council, the Journal, and damned near everyone else in the city’s power structure had been calling it “inevitable” since it was first announced, I had no illusion that there would be any actual deliberation.

Let’s see:

1. Bilk taxpayers out of $12 million to tear down a neighborhood and build an unneeded baseball stadium downtown? Check.
2. Rename the team in honor of a punctuation mark (and not even the correct punctuation mark) and create a logo that looks like an angry purple penis? Check.
3. Mismanage your business to the point where all construction on the stadium stops and contractors are owed almost half a million dollars in back pay? Check.
4. Use this stellar track record to blackmail the taxpayers into lending you another $16 million so the bulldozed neighborhood, half-built stadium, and surrounding blight don’t hang around for another ten years or so attracting vermin? Check.
5. Provide actual new stadium and revenue for the city while paying back the loan? Probably not anytime soon.

Who didn’t see this coming? Apparently not our esteemed mayor. But it’s amazing he can see much of anything, what with his head stuffed so far up Billy Prim’s ass and all…

According to some reports I’ve read, as many as one million Americans may have been caught completely unaware by yesterday’s switch from analog to digital television broadcasting.

I think each and every one of them should write a nice, long letter to President Carter to complain about it.

I thought this was a gag when I heard it mentioned on the radio this morning.

What’s really sad is that so many people are unemployed while the studio executive who signed off on this probably still has a job.

While I appreciate the sentiment behind an article like this one, and while the author tries really hard to be a good road geek, I have to point out a couple of things:

1. I-279 through Pittsburgh, once truncated at the Point, will still fit the definition of a three-digit interstate with an even first digit, which is to say that it will both start and end at other interstate highways (in this case, I-79 to the north, and I-376 to the south).
2. I-376, once fully extended to the airport, will actually fit the definition of a three-digit interstate with an odd first digit even better than it now does, because it will start at one interstate highway (I-76) but will no longer end at another one. Of course, all bets will be off if plans to further extend it back to I-76 on the west side or to I-80 are ever realized.

Note that even numbers at the beginning usually indicate loops or bypasses, and that odd numbers usually indicate spurs into a city, but the real definition is based on the start and end points.

Sorry. It’s been a rough week. That’s all I’ve got tonight…