THE WASHINGTON METRO TRANSIT SYSTEM - A STUDY IN NINCOMPOOPERY

As a taxicab driver in the National Capital Area, one question I am asked with inreasing frequency is if I am concerned that the new Metro "Silver Line" out to Dulles Airport will hurt my business. Actually I think it might improve things. First off, instead of a trip to Dulles once or twice a week I might wind up getting five or six trips a day to the eastern terminal of the new "Silver Line" in West Falls Church, since people with luggage don't like to change trains. The only people I see getting hurt are the "Super Shuttle" cheap shuttle ride guys. Them, and the damned corrupt bellhops who try to "sell" Dulles fares to the cab drivers (and in Virginia that's illegal. It's called extortion, and it's a felony; but it is still quite common).

 

But for a second thing, I personally don't think the "Silver Line" will be all that popular after people in a hurry to catch a flight experience Metro's legendary capability to fuck things up. There's the fact that Metro passengers bound for Dulles will detrain to a station located a whopping SIX HUNDRED YARDS (the equivalent of three football fields) from the terminal. And although I haven't seen the plans yet, I bet it's uphill. (Oh, yeah, moving sidewalks; no doubt as reliable and well maintained as Metro's escalators and elevators aren't.) But by the time these poor travellers have been put through Metro's notorious delays, derailments, and service interruptions that 600 yard hike will merely supply the  icing to the cake. Or more apt, the last straw.

 

The planning for the Washington Metro was flawed from the beginning. It was based on the premise that the Federal government would always be the number one industry in the region and that it would always be mainly centered on downtown Washington, D.C.. Metro was created to take the masses of government workers from their homes in the bedroom suburbs and transport them into D.C.; get them to and from lunch and meetings during the day and then get them home at end of day. Therefore the hours were only from 5AM until around 9:30PM weekdays, and 7AM to midnight weekends. This was thought to eliminate the necessity for "extra" tracks; in the event one set of tracks needed work the work could be done during the ample "down time" when the entire system would be void of passengers. But a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia.

 

Just about every land developer with half a brain saw mountains of money to be made in buying up huge tracts of private homes in the vicinity of Metro stops and having them re-zoned for high density mixed-use high rise development. Arlington County, Virginia in particular embraced this practice eagerly, and soon the laid-back single family houses and neighborhood restaurants and taverns within six blocks of every Metro station between Rosslyn and Ballston were ripped out, plowed over, and replaced with high-rise offices, hotels, apartments and condos. (Here and there have been instances of residents fighting to keep a few vestiges of the Rosslyn - Clarendon - Ballston corridor from the wreckers, but even so more of these older funky shops and restaurants fall to high rise redevelopment every year.)

 

This redevelopment near the Metro stations has not been limited to Arlington, and the resulting glut of relatively inexpensive office space has led to more companies hiring more workers and increasing the population of the Washington Metropolitan Area. All these people making all this money fueled a boom in the restaurant and entertainment industry, and a few years ago Metro began adding post-midnight service on weekends.

 

With the trains running from 5AM to Midnight on weekdays (with the last train pulling into the yard empty at around 1:30 AM) and until 2AM wekends (with the tracks devoid of trains around 4AM); this left about four hours in the morning to do all the necessary maintenance. It was not and is not enough. This in turn has led to everything from minor delays in service to deadly collisions and everything in between.

 

It simply was not forseen that the mere existance of Metro would fuel a development boom and a population growth that would quickly strain the system beyond its design limits. It was thought at the time that since Metro would not be a 24/7 system as is New York City's, there was no need for spare track capacity and the like. And although Metro still is not a round-the-clock transportation system it may as well be.

 

"Single-tracking" and station closures - even at peak rush hours - have become nearly normal. Accidents and near accidents are common occurrences. Last year it was rumored - and never satisfactorily proven or disproven - that Metrorail train operators, having insufficient time for latrine breaks when needed, were carrying trash bags in which to - er - eliminate bodily wastes.

 

We will not, being constrained by time, go into such things as cars with inadequate air conditioning and such. Unless Metro can do something to expand capacity and add spare rail lines to allow for repairs without disrupting service, the first trip to Dulles someone undertakes may well be the last.

 

I only hope the novelty of it lasts long enough to put the el cheapo shuttles out of business. What? Me worry?

 

 

MEN, WOMEN, AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM

The current campaign for the Presidency of the United States of America has featured a series of attempts to define Republicans in general and the Republican candidates in particular as being "anti-gay" and "anti-woman'. The recent (and we will grant you idiotic) remarks from the Senatorial candidate in Missouri have not helped turn this aside.

The Democrats say that men and women enjoy the same rights under the Constitution. This statement is one we endorse. But they then go on to say that there is no difference between men and women, and that two people of the same sex constitute just as much of a marriage as two people of opposite sexes. Those two statements are a load of horse crap.

The bottom line on the difference between men and women is this:

If the entire human race got wiped out tomorrow, save for one man and one hundred women, then within fourteen years that man could father 1400 kids, with the first 700 couples becoming of child-bearing age in the fourteenth year. From that year forward exponetially more breeding pairs would mature and breed, and the planet would be re-populated to a large extent within 50 years.

On the other hand, one hundred men and one woman? I can imagine several scenarios, and not one of them leads to the re-establishment of a human population.

The acceptance or denial of this - words fail me - OBVIOUS FACT - is what informs the philosophies of the Left and the Right over the roles of the sexes and marriage in society.

LISTEN, YOU HOMOSEXUAL DODOS

This past Wednesday, two weeks after "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" (and two days ago as of this writing) a homosexual male armed with a 9mm Sig-Sauer handgun and a knapsack full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches caused a major kerfluffle when he shot a security officer at the headquarters of a conservative anti-"gay marriage"- group in downtown Washington, D.C.

I am really getting sick and tired of you "gay activists" trying to promote homosexuality as "normal".  And my reasons have nothing to do with some kind of "prejudice" toward the "gay lifestyle".

Have you folks noticed that - and for my conservative audience, brace yourselves - the homosexuals in history who have made the contributions you activists so vaunt were able to do so precisely because they were decidedly NOT "normal"? 

Alan Turing, the limey mathematician who invented a machine to rapidly decipher the German "enigma" code during World War II, was homosexual. And yes, the "thanks" he got - persecution that drove him to suicide - was deplorable. The United Kingdom owes Turing a most profound apology. Without Turing's assistance, I shudder to think of the society we would be living in today.

But the very thing that enabled Turing to devote so much time and effort to the war was his lack of being bound by marriage vows. To the extent that ANY homosexual has made ANY meaningful contribution to the betterment or preservation of mankind, in large part it has been due to the freedom that attaches (or attached) to that lifestyle. If you homosexuals believe that God intended you to be so, then He (being God) must have intended it so, and for a good reason.

Turing and other homosexuals who have contributed much to the success and preservation of freedom and to the other benefit of their fellow humans have been able to do so precisely because they were (and are) NOT NORMAL. But today's crop of idiot homos insists on being completely integrated into "normal" society, with of course lip service being given to their "uniqueness" even as the substance and benefit of that "uniqueness" bleeds out to the "new normal" until it becomes meaningless and, therefore, useless.

And now we are faced with this report of a young homosexual, enraged that there are some who object to his lifestyle, obtaining a firearm and invading a conservative bastion of thought with that firearm and a ton of ammo (and a bagful of Chick-fil-A sandwiches) and shooting a security officer who never did one thing to him.  (And of course, the spin is that the blame lies with Virginia and our "lax" firearms laws.)

It is the official editorial position of the Alexandria Daily Poop that homosexuals should not be discriminated against in matters of employment except for religious institutions and where such discrimination is Constitutionally protected (as in the Boy Scouts). Further, we hold that discrimination against homosexuals in matters of housing or other forms of accommodation is wrong.

However, we also hold that two members of the same sex cannot constitute a marriage. To any homosexual who wants to get married, we give our blessing to and hope that he or she can find someone of the opposite sex with whom to be married.

But if any of you think you can inflict deadly force upon those who disagree with you, well, I will refer you to the photograph at the top of this blog. I do believe in equality. That there thing I am holding is what you call an "equalizer".

Now stop acting and talking like a pack of fucking idiots.

SUCKERS

There are various things that prompt me to put a post up here frrom time to time. Sometimes there is something happening somewhere that I feel like putting my two cents in for people to read. Or maybe I get an idea for a satire, or maybe I just get pissed off at the statists. Sometimes I go with an essay or two, and get real serious.

Or sometimes I see an ad on TV just as I'm going to sleep and it fires off certain connections in my head, and I rouse myself, sit down and get typing. Tonight is one of those nights, and the ads were a couple of car ads.

One ad was the one with the three college kids, one of whom just bought a new Honda. As they get in, Mr. New Car Owner announces that "college finally paid off!"

Ho, ho, ho.

How many people are there who got those wonderful government loans and went to college? How many parents were there who thought that this college education would ensure their offspring a better life than they had?

And how many parents and young adult offspring have been totally shocked to find the kids coming back to the nest to roost because those college loan payments mean no money for rent?

And we're not talking about the idiots who majored in the off-the-wall crap offered by colleges these days. You know, the ones who walked in for an interview and the guy says: "Hmm. You majored in Trans-sexual studies with a secondary in General Frippery, and you want a job? Doing what?" We're talking about medical doctors, lawyers, and engineers. By the time these kids pay off their college loans they'll be too old to have kids.

Well, I'm sure that the folks who issued you all those loans - which by law you cannot get out from under by filing bankruptcy - are living quite comfortably.

Then again that kid in the ad might just have gone to a Community College and learned something useful and started a business. It's kind of nice to know that kids who were looked down on right after high school for attending community college instead of literally mortgaging their futures are having the last laugh.

AN OLDIE BUT A VERY RELEVANT GOODIE

MY VERY DEAR READER, PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MAKING ONE OF MY PREVIOUS POSTS QUITE RELEVANT.

Before I re-direct you to this post, a little background about content and terms. The "Shmoo" was a fictional being featured in Al Capp's famous comic strip "Lil' Abner".  The "Shmoo" was a being whose aim was to please, even to the point of becoming a ready-cooked meal.

The satire I am referencing, "New Species Found In Washington, D.C." basically contrasts "false shmoos" (Pseudophilanthropis) with "True Shmoos" (Philanthropis Legitimi) and of course needles politicians in general (and natch Obama in particular) for being the fakers they are.

To get to the post, simply go to the search box on the left side of the top of the page and type in "NEW SPECIES".

Comments are OPEN for this one. They will still be moderated, but I do believe that the leftist blather provoked by this post will be, shall I say, instructive. Enjoy.

THE HARPSICHORD LIVES ! (A non-political post for once.)

Aren't you sick of all this political controversy? Don't you need a small break in the action - at least to regroup and reload? (and fuck all you "sensitive" assholes, that's what we're gonna do.) Today, in place of our usual political diatribe, we are pleased to present a tribute to that most expressive of keyboard instruments, the harpsichord.

Yesterday I read - or was it today? - but in any case I read an article in the Washington Post lamenting the low estate of the harpsichord.

I love the harpsichord. There is not another instrument made that has its unique qualities. You can get a viola to sound approximately like a rebec. The guitar can be made to imitate the sounds of the lute or even the Arabic oud. But to get a proximtion of the harpsichord, the closest thing you can get without an actual harpsichord is playing what I call "flatfoot piano"; that is, piano without using the pedals. And even that is light years away from the beauty of the tone and variations of the harpsichord.

Actually, music written for the organ transposes very well to the harpsichord. Take your finger off the key, the note stops. (Of course, the organ has the property of full-power sustain as long as the key is depressed and the air keeps flowing to the pipes). As a plus, for some reason harpsichord music generally flows well on the guitar; due, I (as a middling guitarist) suppose, to the fact that in order to sustain a fretted note on the guitar one must maintain the fretted position (and in order to mute an open string one must use a palm technique, but I digress...).

In fine, there is nothing that sounds like a classic harpsichord. There have been modern attempts at synthesis of the sound; the best of them produced by Roland musical instruments. But while the Roland attempt was quite good it was nothing compared to actual courses of strings plucked by jacks activated by keys.

If ever I am wealthy enough to afford a mansion with a music room, the centerpiece of it will be a harpsichord, a double manual (two-keyboard) style with what is known as a "lute stop".

The harpsichord is far from obsolete. Rather, it is an instrument which although it sounds beautifully nevertheless is "too hard" or "not profitable" for contemporary instrument makers to offer.  

But if enough people listen to the works originally written and performed on the harpsichord, they will easily be able to distinguish the suitability of the harpsichord to these tunes, and will be able to see exactly what is missing as regards the transcriptions of these works for pianoforte.

There is no substitute for it. Vive le Harpsichord! (And pardon my French.)

PAUL RYAN - A MOST EXCELLENT CHOICE

WE here at the Alexandria Daily Poop cannot fully express in words how elated we were this morning to learn that Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) as his running mate. The fact that the statist leftist morons out there wasted no time in flooding every internet site featuring this news with their snide drivel is proof that 'president' Obama and his butt-licking followers fear Ryan even more than Romney.

Within seconds Team Obama had an attack ad on the air. This rapidity has been touted as proof of the Obama campaign's preparedness and ability to respond quickly, however it is certain that they had pre-made ready-to-go attack ads aimed at anyone they thought was remotely likely to be named Romney's running mate, and pulled this one off the shelf and dubbed in some current info just before airing it.

Otherwise the Democrat party operatives are reacting like Iron Chef contestants right after the "mystery ingredient" has been revealed.

Well, we suppose they will try to "Palinize" Ryan. Good luck with that. Ryan is very well-spoken and (and this terrifies the Ubamanistas) knowledgable and well versed in the math and philosophy of finance, budgets, and economics. What is worse for Obama, he has a talent for being able to explain complex economic matters in a way that most laymen can understand. The Democratic pitch to the citizenry is an attempt to fuddle them, to make them think that they need "experts" such as Obama's choice for Treasurer Tim "I'm so silly I can't operate TurboTax" Geithner.  (Well, we suppose Tim IS kind of clever. He had to be to simultaneously be a tax deadbeat AND Secretary of the Treasury).

On one front Ryan is very outspoken, and what he said at his acceptance speech will be repeated and repeated. It is the one thing that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Democrats do NOT want people thining about. Ryan said, loud and clear for all to hear:

"OUR RIGHTS COME FROM NATURE AND GOD. THEY ARE NOT GRANTED BY THE GOVERNMENT".

More than anything, Obama and his henchmen do NOT want that to become part of the discussion. Unfortunately for Obama, those words will be part of every single debate and discussion during this election.

The Alexandria Daily Poop hereby heartily endorses Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for President and Vice President of the United States of America. God bless the U.S.A.!

THAT INCREDIBLY VILE OBAMA AD

I N all the time I have been putting this blog out, indeed in my very lifetime I have never seen a political campaign as as slimy, as dirty, as utterly false as the ad in which an ex-steelworker lays the death of his wife from cancer at the doorstep of Mitt Romney.

Here's what you are not told: The steelworker worked for a company which Bain Capital tried to bail out. That's what Bain Capital does, and it's the reason why people at Staples an Dunkin' Donuts still have jobs.  What Bain did was take over failing companies, try and make them viable, and then sell them for a profit. Sort of like flipping houses. Sometimes a company just isn't salvageable, and that was the case with this guy's steel company employer. Bain Capital gave that guy and his co-workers another six months of employment before they had to give up on it.

AND the guy's wife HAD HER OWN JOB AND HER OWN HEALTH INSURANCE.  AND the guy found a job as a janitor that paid 15 grand. AND while it's true that this is less than the 45 grand he made at the mill, HIS PRESENT SALARY PLUS HIS PENSION IS ABOUT THE SAME AS HIS OLD SALARY.

AND the guy got laid off SIX YEARS BEFORE HIS WIFE WAS DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER SO WHAT THE FUCK DOES MITT ROMNEY AND BAIN CAPITAL HAVE TO DO WITH ANY OF IT? Except of course that he got another six months of full employment thanks to Mitt.

But all you hear in the ad is: I lost my job when Bain Capital closed the mill. I lost my healthcare. My wife got cancer and died, and Mitt Romney doesn't care.

THAT is the central message they are trying to get out with this ad: "Mitt Romney doesn't care". 

This is bullshit. Mitt Romney cared enough to risk investment capital to try and save this dude's job (along with hundreds of his co-workers.) Does anybody REALLY expect - or want, for that matter, a President who watches over everyone as if he were as omnipresent as God Himself and who kisses evewy widdo boo-boo and makes it all better?  Indeed this is Obama's central campaign message: that he makes a better God than Romney would.

But wait. There's more.

This same guy bitched about Romney in an ad run by Obama's campaign. But the "Romney doesn't care" ad was produced by a Democrat PAC.  PACs and campaigns cannot, by law, collaborate. Yet evidence is mounting that these two ads were made on the very same day by the same studio, and the campaign and the PAC were in close collaboration on the content of both messages and the timing of their release.

The Democrat Party will stoop to anything bar nothing to ensure Obama's continued desecration of the Office of the President. It is rapidly becoming nothing more than a continuing criminal enterprise, and when we have a Republican Attorney General again, his first order of business should be to prosecute Obama and his henchmen - notably Holder and Pelosi - under the Rico statutes. 

HOW TO STOP CASINO GAMBLING COLD

Full disclosure, I like to gamble in casinos when I can afford it, which is not damned often. But I do find that if I take my time, bet right, and make sure there's twice as much money someplace I can't get to it as I brought into the joint; then I can have hours of fun for relatively little money. No, I'm not crazy. I usually bring about $500 in and leave with about $175 if I'm losing (and sometimes I get fried, too; but there's still a grand in my desk drawer at the house when I get back home). And sometimes I come home a few hundred bucks richer. I'm more or less pretty much breaking even, and by my lights it's fun.  I never bring plastic into a casino and I don't sign up for those "player's clubs".

My first experience with any kind of casino was in Wheeling, West Virginia in the spring of 2008. I went in at 2:15 in the afternoon with $850 and emerged at 6:45 the next morning with $645. That's sixteen and one half hours during which I completely enjoyed myself for the sum of $205. And much of that was food and drink. And, at one point in the proceedings I found myself the happy possessor of $2,500 in casino chips, which of course I used to prolong my stay (casinos are engineered to fascinate and to erase clues as to the passage of time).

I visited a few more times, sometimes winning and sometimes losing money, but having fun every time. But Wheeling is 300 miles from where I reside, and until two years ago the nearest "casino" was a slots barn in Charles Town, West Virginia that, although it was only a 70 mile drive, offered nothing but one-armed bandits. I prefer table games, especially those featuring a good dealer with some personality. So when it was announced that Charles Town would be offering table games two years ago, I was chomping aat the bit, and took five hundred to opening night.

I was completely appalled. Table minimums for blackjack started at $25. I AM NOT GONNA PLAY TWENTY-FIVE A HAND MINIMUM BLACKJACK. But then it hit me. Wheeling has $10 tables available almost all the time and there is usually at least one $15 table with a seat available (and on my last visit the recession had led to a proliferation of five-dollar tables). But Wheeling's customer base is generally from West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania - and Wheeling faces competition from other nearby casinos. Charles Town was setting $25 minimums for a reason I can't argue with: the tables were four and five deep with gamblers waiting for a seat. Charles Town was suddenly the closest place for slots and table games to one of the wealthiest regions on the planet: the Washington Metropolitan Area.

Then Maryland began opening casinos practically smack-dab in the middle of the region. These casinos feature computer-simulated roulette, blackjack, baccarat, etc. in addition to slots; and lots of local D.C. area people now journey 25 miles up the pike to get their gambling fix instead of a 70 mile jaunt over two-lane mountain roads.  As a result, on my last visit to Charles Town I found 4-card poker with a ten dollar minimum and blackjack and "let it ride" poker with a fifteen dollar minimum. Ah, competition and the free market.

Now Maryland is toying with the notion of opening one more casino than was originally authorized and allowing table games with live dealers. And the sixth casino is being proposed to be located in the "National Harbor" development. (And if you've never seen National Harbor, let me tell you that if you view it from across the Potomac in Virginia you'll be surprised that there are not casinos there already.)

Predictably, the operators of the currently authorized casinos are screaming bloody murder. A casino right on the banks of the Potomac River, within five to fifteen miles of the D.C. area's wealthiest areas, would suck the big money right out of even Arundel Mills (located 25 miles outside of D.C. near the Baltimore-Washington International Airport).

Put it this way: if you want to drive burger joints out of business, locate a bunch of them within two blocks of each other. Each will dilute the business of the others until none of them is viable anymore.

It's the same with casinos. Regulate odds and payouts and let them proliferate willy-nilly, and in time the only ones left standing will be those which cater to people who can afford to gamble or which offer fairer and more attractive odds and limits.

Ah, competition and the free market.

CORRECTION

The e-mail address for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid contained in the last post was defective. The address has been corrected and will now link to the Senator's web page and "contact" section.

DEMAND THAT SENATE MAJORITY LEADER REID FREE VICKIE THE GOAT AT ONCE!

HERE AT THE ALEXANDRIA DAILY POOP, WE TRY HARD TO GIVE YOU THE TRUTH, AND NOT JUST SPREAD IDLE RUMORS. BUT IT IS THE TRUTH THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF IDLE RUMORS FLYING AROUND.

One of these was voiced the other day by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said that he had it on the authority of an "anonymous Bain Capital investor" that putative Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney had not paid income taxes for ten years.

We at the Alexandria Daily Poop were about to dismiss this as just another paathetic attempt to force Romney to hand over 13,000 pages of data for the Democrat propaganda machine to miscontrue and use to obfuscaate the real issue; which is not what Romney is doing with HIS money but what Obama has been doing witb OUR MONEY.

However, noted D.C. area talk show host Chris Plante announced today that he has been informed by an anonymous and mysterious source that Senator Reid keeps captive in his office a female goat by the name of Vickie, along with an assortment of lingiere and French maid outfits, lipstick, etc.

Some credence may be given to this rumor by the fact that Reid told a reporter that a certain smell was "the tourists coming into the Capitol building." Is it possible he was trying to explain away the aroma of sweaty female goat?

What horrors is this innocent barnyard animal being put through? Who else is involved? The burden is on Senator Reid, who must IMMEDIATELY invite the Federal Bureau of Investigation in to swab his office for ovine DNA and, if Vickie the Goat is present, to rescue her and take her for examination. Reid must also allow his residences and adjunct offices in Washington and Nevada to be similarly searched.

DEMAND that Senator Reid free this poor ewe goat at once, by calling, faxing, or e-mailing him at:

TELEPHONE: (202)-224-3542

FAX:                (202)-224-7327

E-MAIL:           www.reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

FREE VICKIE THE GOAT NOW!!!

CHICK-FIL-A APPRECIATION DAY IN ALEXANDRIA

DATELINE ALEXANDRIA VIRGINIA
AUGUST 1 2012

Landmark Shopping Mall Food Court

The Landmark Mall has been in decline for the last few decades, and it shows in the number of empty storefronts and the scarcity of people doing much of anything there. The packs of teens and tweens are gone and adult shoppers are few.

The top-floor food court, which once held ten or more fast-food options, now only contains a few hold-outs and a "video arcade" with six machines - and no customers. But today, for one shop in this benighted mall, it was a return to the heyday of the 70s.

That shop is the fast-food chicken sandwich franchise "Chick-Fil-A". As the managers of the other surviving food franchises looked on with envy, people started lining up at about eleven AM to get a meal. By half past the hour the line contained almost one hundred people, with more coming.

Why was this day different from all other days? Because the diners were showing solidarity with the owner of Chick-Fil-A, who; for stating his personal Christian belief that marriage can only be the union of one man and one woman, has been told by the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco -  Democrats all - to forget about opening a franchise in those cities.

The people lining up in such numbers for a chicken sandwich were doing more than having lunch. Many of them had to seek out this establishment, and many of them would not otherwise have set foot in Landmark mall. They were, in addition to getting a feed on, showing their defiance to these power-mad politicians who evidently think they can punish free speech.

Scenes like this aare playing out in nearly every Chick-Fil-A location in the nation, often with much bigger crowds. But it is a true measure of the intensity of this protest - which is not called a protest but rather an "appreciation day" - that even this location, tucked away in a corner of the third floor of a dilapidated and failing ghost-town of a shopping mall, was as flooded with customers as it would have been back in 1985 when the mall and the food court were the place to be.

This was not a protest against "gay marriage". It was a protest against the infringement of freedom of religion and of speech committed by these Democrat party officials when they threatened to deny Chick-Fil-A permission to operate in their bailiwicks solely because the owner of the company gave voice to personal religious beliefs that they don't care for.

The appreciative diners are not just a pack of gay-hating "right wing" Christian conservatives, either. Nationwide, not a few homosexuals showed up and made a point of saying that the arrogation of power by the Democrats repulsed and disturbed them much more than CEO Dan Cathy's constitutionally protected voicing of his own opinion. And in this respect, they have it exactly right.

There was a ballot cast today, and it was cast on the register tapes of every Chick-Fil-A franchise in the nation. Yet another sounding, growing ever louder, of the "twilight of the gods" for the Democrat party.

It's Gotterdammerung with fries.